


That Boy of Misery

by Alexander_Wesker



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (Hence the strange timey-wimey stuff), (In my imagining Angels have halo-shaped horns), (Like a biblical Angel though he hides his true form to not make people go insane), (honestly it all comes down to him still having to get the hang on how to actually be human), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bad Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Insanity, Older Sibling Wilbur Soot, Paranoiac thoughts, Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Phil doesn't know 'how to human' right, Phil is an actual Angel in here, Possessive Behavior, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, The story is on their fictional counterparts not on their RL selves, Though he isn't exactly a villain just... a poor boy with problems, Time Travel, Villain Wilbur Soot, Wilbur Soot Angst, Wilbur Soot Tries to be a Good Older Sibling, Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit are Siblings, Wilbur and Ghostbur are both here, Wilbur dies as in canon and yet... not, Winged Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), but he is trying his best to become a good father, courtesy of Villbur, they are brothers your honor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29367411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexander_Wesker/pseuds/Alexander_Wesker
Summary: Wilbur died, a gaping wound on his chest and his lungs filled with his own blood, he had closed his eyes  for the last time...and then he opened them again. How was he still alive?
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 163
Kudos: 515





	1. And even Death shunned him...

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this really strange idea as I was rewatching the past events of the Dream SMP. I hope you guys like it, also this is a One-short for now, but if you guys want I could continue it. As I have some Ideas on what could happen with Wil and Ghostbur, and with Phil trying to help Wil recover...

> “ _One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly”_
> 
> _ -Friedrich Nietzsche _

_ It was done. _

Done,  L’Manberg, his  L’Manberg, the nation that was never meant to be, that had never lived to be what it should have been like, was gone.

And he was dying,  choking on his own blood, dense and warm flowing freely from the hole in his chest and filling his mouth. He was fine with that, even though he really wished that his father could have been merciful enough to stab him in the heart.

_ Uh, maybe this was karma biting back. He had been an awful son, he had disappointed him, for what else would his father being so teary eyed when he stabbed him if not because of that? It wasn’t like there was a reason to cry for him. _

Wilbur coughed, pain shooting through his body as more and more blood flowed out of his wound, his vision was getting blurrier and blurrier, he couldn’t breathe anymore, not without getting more blood to well out in his throat.

_ Good. _

Wilbur turned his head to stare at the destruction, the crater that once was his beautiful nation.  Gone as he would soon be.

A smile curved his bloodstained lips.

Wilbur closed his eyes and  _Let go_.

.

.

.

Then he opened his eyes. Light burning at his eyes, way brighter than he remembered it to be. _Was this the afterlife?_  
  
Wilbur tried to stand up, but as soon as he even tried to sit pain shot through him. _Okay so, not the afterlife, unless even the dead felt pain… which honestly would be such a_ disappointment _. Death should be peaceful, wasn’t that what every single author and philosopher said?_ Liars _the bunch of them_. 

Barely biting back a groan, Wilbur tried to sit once again. Not all that surprisingly he failed. At least there was no blood in his throat anymore, which he supposed could be seen as a victory, if it wasn’t that he didn’t want to be here.

_Alive? Dead?_ Whatever state of being he was right now, though he was leaning on _somehow still alive_ . He was in too much pain to be in any form of death: his chest aching were the gaping wound should be, but wasn’t even though he couldn’t see all that much lying down as he was,  all he could see was the blood  staining his clothes, but since he could breathe without inhaling his own blood, he was pretty certain that the wound wasn’t there,  his head pounding like during a bad hangover, even thinking was painful and he just wanted it to fucking stop. 

He wanted this all to fucking stop.

L’Manberg was gone, he should be too. Dead and gone, dust to dust, ashes to ashes and all that rot.

By any means, he should be dead right now, he had thrown his last possibility of life away, let his own father run him through with a sword. 

The biting of the sharp diamond tearing at his flesh fresh in his mind.  _How the hell was he still alive? And why?!  
  
Why couldn’t he just die?  
  
What the fuck had he to do to let this pityful existence of his to finally end?_

Feeling the warmth of anger filling his veins, Wilbur forced himself to move, ignoring the pain, letting it feed the ever-growing anger he was feeling, burning, burning, burning like fire.

Burning like blaze’s powder on skin, fizzling, hungry.  _Destructive_ .

And yet invigorating, like the flavorless burn of a potion going down his throat, like alchool but without the dizziness.

With a hiss of pain, Wilbur finally managed to at least sit upright, half leaning on  some piece of rubble,  and checked his wound. He bowed down his head, trying to get a better look, ignoring quite easily the slight pain caused by the straining movement, and the fact that doing that made his headache even worse.

The wound… _wasn’t there?_

He brought a hand to where it should have been, dried blood and stone dust and dirt on his fingers, not that he cared. Again he should be dead right now, and since he wasn’t… well surely a possibility of infection wouldn’t do the trick after what he just survived.

Surely enough there was no trace of wound, only smooth skin sticky with clotted blood.

_ So… he was alive, and somehow what should have been a deadly wound was healed. _

A chuckle, high-pitched bordering on completely hysteric, escaped from his lips abruptly, soon followed by another, and then another yet. And soon enough Wilbur found himself laughing loudly, the sound leaving his mouth too high-pitched and shocked and confused, at the absurdity of it all and at the injustice of the fact that he was that  _much of a failure_ to not even be able to let himself get killed.

He laughed till his ribs hurt and the wound-that-wasn’t-there ached, he laughed till his laugh turned into a dry, hacking cough and tears were streaming down his face, _from the pain? From the hilariously sad situation he found himself in? He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he cared either_ .

He wiped the tears away with his palms, probably smearing his face with the dirt that was on them. Uh, not that it would make that much of a difference, between the dried, and drying, blood and the dust, he doubted that a bit of more, would have made that big of a difference.

He must have looked like a zombie, with less decaying flesh and mindless, monotone moans, but one all the same. 

_Oh, well…_

Using the piece of rubble as a support, Wilbur stood up. It was only then that he realized that what he had been leaning against wasn’t a piece of rubble, the surface too smooth and clean and… too blue?

It looked like a sacrificial altar carved out from lapis, in front of it blue carpet made out of wool, and now stained with his blood. Still gripping on the sides of the altar, Wilbur took in where he was for the first time since he had woken up.

For one, he was pretty sure that this still was the Room, he could see the remains of words painted on what remained of stone walls, all cracked and damaged, covered up in moss, but the crater was still there so it couldn’t have passed all that time… or maybe that meant that no-one tried to built L’Manberg back up again after he blew it up. 

That thought brought a half-smile to his lips. At least a part of his plan had worked as it should have.

Besides the altar, strewn about the cracked floor were some brewing stands, all beautifully glowing with the magic of blazes, and two empty  crates of dynamite, activation buttons on the side of the rusted out metal. 

Wilbur frowned.  _Had someone turned this into some sort of shrine for him?  
  
What the fuck?_

_ Just… for how fucking long had he lied there? Certainly it couldn’t be all that long right?  
Right? _

The blood on his wound-that-should-be-there was still sticky, so it couldn’t have been all that long…  _unless_ …

Wilbur swore, under his breath, against himself.  _Of course, of-fucking-course_ ,  _the only time he’d need to die_ all the potions he downed trying to overdose on blaze’s energy would come into effect. 

He was such a stupid idiot, no surprise no-one wanted him as president. Who would have wanted someone that stupid guiding their country?  
  
By trying to kill himself with that he ended up saving himself from the other possibility.

Out of frustration, he punched the altar, once, twice, thrice, till his hand hurt and then some more for good measure. He was in so much pain that some more would do him nothing, besides making him even more angry at himself.

With a growl, and feeling another hysterical laughter bubbling in his throat that he tried to keep down, he stopped punching the poor thing. The once reflecting, clear surface now tainted with dust and blood. A hysteric chuckle left his lips. 

_Wasn’t that_ _the perfect_ _rappresentation of him?_   
  
_He ruined every fucking thing he touched._ His own family, his country, the other country he created just to spite those that had betrayed him and casted him out of the place he created with his sweat and tears and blood, with his heart and soul.

_ He was a fucking mess, and he was so broken and fucked up that couldn’t get right even the act of  _ dying _. _

“W-Wil?” 

Wilbur turned towards the, painfully, familiar voice, and there he was, Philza, his father, in all of his otherworldly glory, visible wings black closed behind his back, the pointy, primary feathers almost touching the ground, horns curving into a halo, that was…  _cracked_ ? (It wasn’t cracked the last time Wilbur saw it) just above were his hat usually was. Eyes slightly glowing, and teary…  _why were they teary?_   
  
_Did you miss me, dad?_ ; was the thought that came unbridled in his mind. Wilbur shook his head, “of course he didn’t miss you, you fucking idiot” he hissed under his breath, but in the silence his father heard him anyway.

“Of course I missed you, Wil” his father said, voice soft and barely above a whisper as if he believed that talking even slightly louder would have make him disappear.

And then Wilbur found himself enveloped in a hug that was all warmth and feathers, and soft words and care that made his heart ache and twinge and twist and beat louder, louder, till he felt as if he was going to choke on his own heartbeat.

He pushed his father away. “Don’t touch me.” he hissed, keeping his eyes on the ground after having got a glimpse of his own blood staining his father’s pure white clothing ( _why was he good only in tainting things, why couldn’t he do better? Why couldn’t he stop ruining things?!_ )

“Wil…” 

  
  
“No, _don’t_. I… I destroyed L’Manberg, I forced you to kill me, you… I...-”

“You didn’t destroy L’Manberg, Wil. I did.” his father interrupted him, voice calm, and sure as if what he was saying was the truth even if it couldn’t be. Wilbur remembered pushing the button, he destroyed his beautiful unfinished, forever unfinished, symphony. 

“Wha… No… that’s not what happened… I pushed the button, I… I had to destroy it! It was mine, _mine_! And it was being _ruined_ , _I_ destroyed it! _I did it_! _I_!” Wilbur winced as his chest ached, and his throat burned, itching like he had to cough again.

His father said nothing for a long, long moment. And Wilbur almost thought he had gone away, as he always did, as he did even when he was dying. He may had felt guilty but he had abandoned him, took the sword with him… to go fight, to save who he could, while Wilbur breathed, what he thought would have been, his last breaths.

“Wil” his father started, walking slowly towards him, nothing like his abrupt hug, cautious, his hands open palms full in view. Wilbur couldn’t stop himself from thinking what kind of awful sight he must be to make his own father, an angel who had Fallen and not even lost his halo, look that cautious and… scared? Worried? Wilbur was brought back to reality as his father continued. “Wil… that, that happened, a long time ago.” 

“ _What_?” 

That was all he managed to spit out, confusion and fear  and horror starting to fill up his chest, making it difficult to  breathe , as if he was choking again on his blood. And as his father continued, telling him all that had happened…

“No” was all he said, “no, no, _no_ …” repeating the same word again and again and again. That wasn’t possible. _He… he hadn’t been dead for years, that wasn’t… No!_

His father started to call his name, Wilbur continued walking backwards, pain shooting through his body as he did so but he couldn’t bring himself to stop, he couldn’t breath, he…

Another laugh bubbled in his chest mixing with all the confused mess of feelings that were filling his brain, and then Wilbur was laughing, again, high-pitched and crazy and panicked and he couldn’t stop!  
  
His father stopped, his glowing eyes widening in shock. The light of his cracked halo that made Wilbur’s eyes water even more. 

And then he was laughing-crying, unable to stop even if it made his chest ache and his pain worsen.

_Because he was alive, he was alive and he had somehow fucking time-traveled or some absurd shit like that, and L’Manberg was gone, gone, GONE!_ And it was not even by his hand.

_He had failed, he had failed, he had failed!_   
  
Wilbur continued walking backwards even if his father had stopped trying to get closer, one step then another then…

He fell, his fear making his laughter grow even louder, when he just wanted to  _scream_ , and cry. 

  
_And please, please, please, let me die, let me die, let me-_

The impact never came, one moment he was falling and the other he was soaring through the skies, his father holding him tightly as he could.

Whispering soft words to him, as he did when he was a kid, waking up screaming because of the horrifying nightmares his messed up brain conjured up. 

“It’s alright, Wil. It’s alright. We are going home.”  
  
And despite all, despite himself and the fact that he knew he shouldn’t trust anyone not even his own father, Wilbur believed his words.

As Phil flew them home, Wilbur could swear to have seen another him, paler, grayer, deader looking at him with pure…

_Hatred_ .


	2. Exhaustion may make me weak but I’ll not fall to it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pain and emotional distress have took quite the toll on Wilbur’s weakened state; he is tired and yet doesn't want to let it stop him.

> _“ I do not sleep; I wish to meet my death awake._
> 
> _ Maria Theresa of Austria” _

‘Home’ apparently was a two-story cottage made of wood logs built on a stone brick foundation, built in the middle of nothing in the tundra, the cold wind biting at him even through his heavy coat, the rest of his blood soaked clothes that were like the world’s weakest defense from the climate.

Wilbur suppressed a shiver.  _Well, the cold wasn’t all that bad, it made him focus on something else that wasn’t pain, nor the pleasant feeling of being held into his father’s arms as they hovered in the sky_ , likely to find a good place to land, as his other pairs of wings (those that Wilbur would never been able to see, lest he’d lose whatever was left of his mind –not that his father would have risked something like that, he was more than careful enough to keep them hidden at all times–.) even if invisible to mortal eyes, were still there and would knock things down if he were to accidentally hit something. But still close enough so that they didn’t have to walk too much to get to the cottage.

For just a moment, Wilbur pondered about whether or not, try to make his father lose his grip on him, letting him fall. They were still high enough in the air that if he were to fall right, he could break his neck, say finally goodbye to this pitiful existence of his. _It seemed like a good idea_.

But there was also the possibility that he would just break his back and that would paralyze him, and that wasn’t really a risk he wanted to take, so he stayed put.

At the same time his father finally found a good, close place to land, and so they landed. As soon as his feet touched the ground, Wilbur tried to get out from his father’s embrace, for it was too soft to be really defined as a grip, but he was stopped.

“I can walk” he gritted out, starting to get irritated at being treated as if he was a weak, little kid. Even though, and he didn’t want to admit that not even to himself, he felt almost comforted by the fact that his father appeared to care this much about him.

“Are you sure, Wil?” asked his father, voice filled with worry and care, and Wilbur wasn’t all that sure that it was all sincere, though at this exact moment his mind was too muddled up with pain and rapidly growing exhaustion to think exactly of what his father could get by ‘helping’ him. “I don’t want you to over-exert yourself...-”

“ _I can walk_ ” Wilbur repeated. His father sighed but he let him go nonetheless, Wilbur took a half-step back, biting the inside of his cheek to stop a hiss of pain that threatened to leave his mouth at that tiny movement. Apparently now that his shock and anger were starting to fade, he was getting aware once again of the pain that shot through his body at every minuscule movement he made, even breathing, the air too cold and powdery with softy falling snowflakes, was painful.

His father  reached out to him, Wilbur ignored it.

“Just lead the way, _Phil_.” he said, pointedly ignoring the little frown that appeared on his father’s face when he called him by his name, instead of ‘ _dad_ ’ or even ‘ _father_ ’.

His father sighed once again, and Wilbur couldn’t stop himself from thinking that he was just keeping to disappoint him more and more and  _more_ the more he talked and  _breathed_ , he bit down on the panicked chuckle that tried to leave his lips, no need to let his father thing he was insane-r than he already thought he was.

“Alright, Wil, as you wish” his father said, lowering his hand before starting to walk towards the cottage, Wilbur followed suit, if slower, suppressing every little hiss of pain that wanted to be expressed, and every shiver.

The cold was getting stronger, far from the almost pleasant distraction it had been before. Or maybe it wasn’t the cold that was getting stronger but he that was getting weaker. 

Exhaustion creeping through his body, mixed with the pain and his confused thoughts.

He was getting disgustingly weak, not that he’d surrender to that. No matter what his body screamed, he wasn’t in a safe place. He wasn’t with someone he trusted, he couldn’t relax, nor let his guard down more than he had already.

Not that he thought his father would betray him, after all he wasn’t worth it, he wasn’t worth the attention that that would have implied. You need to, at least care enough to, _think_ about someone if you wanted to betray them. 

His father, despite his strange affection, never cared enough about him for that. He cared more about adventuring out, fighting battles and wars, following an Angel’s true call that was to fight and fight and fight till nothing stood in his wake. That was why his father preferred to pass his time with his old war-friend, Technoblade, the Blood God. 

A slight smile bent Wilbur’s lips, and  _wasn’t that ironic?_ That a Fallen Angel preferred the company of a False God to the calmness of a family, because wherever the Blood God was, war and bloodshed was soon to follow.  And maybe it was understandable if looked at by that point of view, Angels were, after all, just unthinking soldiers.

Wilbur supposed that that was why to his father war and violence came more natural than love and caring like a human would.

Still at least thanks to his connections, Wilbur knew some powerful people. 

Like, as said previously, Technoblade who was one of those men that one should prefer to have as an ally, even if distant, than an enemy. That was why Wilbur had called him to help with his plans even though he trusted him only as far as he could throw him, which was to say not at all. Still he knew he could trust him to unleash complete and utter destruction in his path,  _the boar-masked bastard_.

Wilbur was brought back to reality by a rather cold gush of wind, so he hurried to join his father, who was sending him some rather… _concerned_ –?–  looks, on the front porch. And then they headed in.

The cottage wasn’t all that warmer, but that was probably because of the fact that the fire was out(which was understandable), but at least it felt cozier and well protected from the wind outside that had started picking up speed and violence. _Wonderful a snow storm, so any possibility to leave as soon as he could was out of the window, unless he wanted to freeze to death, which… was always an option, he supposed_.

“Wil?” 

Wilbur turned his face to his father,  almost fast enough to get dizzy, _how had he not noticed that he had moved? That wasn’t good_.

_Constant vigilance_. He reminded himself hating the fact that he was so exhausted to let his guard down. _That wasn’t good_.

“You can sit on the couch if you want? While I get the fire going.” 

Wilbur nodded, at least that movement didn’t cause him any more pain, which was almost surprising. His father gave him a little smile, one of his, that were all soft and ethereal and made him look even less human that his wings and halo and glowing eyes did.

Because no human had that kind of warmth in them… well besides,  _Tommy_.

Wilbur stopped on his tracks, so abruptly that he almost tripped on the edge of the wool carpet covering the floor in the middle of the room.

_ Tommy. _

_ His Tommy. _

_ His dear little brother. _

_ Loud and annoying and heroic and naive. Loyal to a fault. Loyal to  _ him _. _

_ The one who swore to forever stay by his side.  
The one who, if his(their) father hadn’t lied(and as an Angel he really couldn’t) had been exiled and betrayed, and betrayed and  _ betrayed _ and used and  _ hurt _ … _

For a moment all of his pain and exhaustion vanished from his mind, his thoughts getting focused only on the thought of his little brother alone, in the midst of fucking traitors.

Wilbur turned back and bolted out in the midst of the fucking snow storm. _Did he know where he was going? No. Did he care? Still the same answer, no.  
His brother needed him._

__

__

_His little brother.  
His. His like L’Manberg was his._

__

__

_He couldn’t leave him alone, forgotten, ha had already done so for years._

__

_For Notch’s sake, what a failure of a brother was he?_

Phil was calling his name, Wilbur ignored him. Pushing and pushing himself, running through the snow, snowflakes slashing at him like little cold blades.  
Wilbur managed to arrive only at the base of an almost completely torn down tower made of brittle stone, like that that was created by shocking lava with too cold water, before his body gave up because of the tiredness.

He had already passed too many a day, wide awake before the destruction of his beautifully, incomplete masterpiece, and this, even with his mind focused, combined with the pain of his almost death, had been enough to bring him down.

* * *

Phil didn’t take much to find his son, laying down in the freezing snow, before the last standing pieces of the Traitor’s Tower. A flash of rightful wrath, that that his kind was known for, burned through him before he stifled it.

Focusing instead on taking his son in his arms, _he was too light_ , Phil realized, _too light, too pale… was this how he had been before his death? Or was this the result of his butchered resurrection?_

It didn’t matter right now. What mattered was bringing Wilbur back home, laying him on the couch (as he didn’t have the guest room ready at this moment), start the fire in the fire pit so that it would get warm in the house. And prepare something for his son to eat when he woke up, and maybe some potions to help him recover.

_He was too light. Too light._

_ But he had the soul of a fighter, a little angel in all but body… and mind. _

Phil couldn’t forget the crazed look in his eyes as he laugh-cried, the almost ecstatic tone his voice had when he was falling down, down, down fast into the crater of what had been his son’s creation.

Closing the door, with a little bit of his grace, since he had his hands busy right now, Phil smiled sadly.  _L’Manburg’s destiny really was to be expected._

_ Angels weren’t meant to create something, when they did… their creations lived too little. Like fires burning too fast, too bright. _

_ Kind of like his own sons… son, he only had one son, the other… was just a traitor. _

Once again Phil found himself having to stifle down his righteous wrath.

_ But he had another shot at getting things better with Wilbur. He’ll help him recover, get better. He’ll help him as he was too late to do last time. _

_ He wouldn’t fail, he wouldn’t. _

Phil laid his son down with care, before taking off his wet coat, he didn’t want Wilbur to get ill. He already looked fragile like this, with his clothes stained with his own blood, and pale, so pale that he almost looked like his ghost-self. 

Then he took a wool blanket that he always kept tucked over the back of the couch, usually for when Ranboo arrived late at night and was too tired to go back to his own house.

A little smile bent the Angel’s lips at the thought of the boy, Ranboo, the half-enderman, half something that not even the Angel could recognize, was  almost like a son to him. He needed someone who cared for him, who was there for him when he felt overwhelmed.

As Phil tended to the fire, after having tucked in Wilbur, assuring himself that his son was well covered by the blanket, he thought about the fact that he hoped Wilbur would got along with his new brother. Even though Ranboo wasn’t…  _Tommy_ .

If the Angel had been a bit more aware, and less lost in his thoughts, he’d have noticed that the cracks on his halo had gotten only more pronounced as he thought that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is Phil confusing the feeling of betrayal with the righteous wrath of an Angel? You can bet on it...  
> (Don't be to harsh on him he has still to get 'how to human' right)


	3. If I’m something that’s determined

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil may say whatever he wants about Tommy, but if there is something Wilbur knows for certain is that his little brother is no traitor. But before he can start his journey to find his brother he has to get a bit better first… So let the angel think he believes his words. Let him.

> " _You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, people must want to believe in it._
> 
> Libba Bray,  _The Sweet Far Thing”_

For a moment, as awareness started slowly creeping through the haziness of his exhaustion induced sleep, Wilbur thought he was back in Pogtopia. It wouldn’t have been the first time that he passed out just to wake up covered with a heavy wool blanket, still laying down on the cold, rough stone.

Tommy sitting somewhere near, watching him with concern.  
That look always made Wilbur feel guilty, like he was a failure of a brother for making his little brother worry about him, it was just that he couldn’t fall asleep, not because he didn’t want to(though in part he actually wanted to stay awake as long as he could to be always sure that everything was going… as right as it could in that horrible, mess of a situation he and Tommy found themselves in –all because of fucking Schlatt, that goat son of a bitch; Wilbur knew he should have killed him years ago, the first time the bastard tried to stab him in the back–) but because he wasn’t able to.

Not with all the eyes watching at him from the stone walls, watching always watching. Leering at him, _judging him_ … watching, watching, _watching_ …

As the awareness grew, followed with the itch, the weight of eyes on him that feeling that didn’t stop following him since _that_ terrible, horrible day, he realized that…

_It was warm._

_Hot, even._

And it was never warm in Pogtopia, no matter how many fires he and Tommy lit up, the ravine was always cold. Cold as if they were surrounded by never-melting ice. The only thing they got from that futile endeavor was that the walls were blackened in streaks by the smoke coming from the fire.

Wilbur’s eyes shot open, adrenaline rushing through his veins. For a moment he didn’t know where he was, only that this wasn’t Pogtopia, only that his brother wasn’t there.  
  
_He wasn’t safe, he wasn’t safe, he wasn’t..._ \- 

“Wil! Wil, calm down.” a voice, calm and warm just as the air around them was, broke through his raising panic. But instead of calming him, recognizing that voice made him feel even more agitated, as his most recent memories came back rushing to him.

The fact that he was apparently years in the future, that he was alone, alone, alone with someone he didn’t trust, not really.

He trusted his father  just enough to be sure that he would kill him under the right circumstances, but nothing more than that. And now he was stuck in his house with him. 

His father took a step forward, towards him, Wilbur suppressed the instinct of wanting to curl up on himself, biting back a panicked whimper. 

His father’s shadow, big and menacing even with the light coming from his halo, that covered him like a blanket made out of darkness.

And it was dark, and it was warm, but cold was starting to creep through Wilbur’s body, an icy, stinging cold, like pins pricking at his skin, ice covering him.

_ And it was dark, and cold, and cold and dark. _

_ And he was alone. _

_ He was alone.  _

_ He needed his brother. He needed his Tommy. _

Bright and sunshine warm. His voice loud and unstopping, drowning out all of the thoughts that Wilbur didn’t want to dwell on. 

_ He needed…  _

_ He needed him. _

“Wil, it’s okay. You are safe.” his father whispered still closing in.

Wilbur shook his head, curling up against the backrest of the couch, the wool blanket falling down on the floor, the purplish wool slightly stained in red, but the stain was so little that it was almost unnoticeable.

His father took another step forward, opening his mouth to say something but Wilbur interrupted him before he even could pronounce whatever he was about to say.

“ _Tommy_.” Wilbur whispered, his voice low and slightly croaky as he forced out his words. His father stopped moving instantly, as if lightning had struck him, his features darkening in a scowl of pure angelic fury, glowing eyes blazing. 

For a moment Wilbur was…  _terrified_ . “Where is my little brother?” he asked, looking in those pits of burning soulfire,  even if fear was starting to gnaw at him.

“You have no brother, Wilbur.” His father… no, Phil said, voice cold as Wilbur had never heard it.

So cold that it almost made him shiver.

“ _What_? Of course I’ve one!” he said, in spite of the fear, in spite of the fact that he knew he was cornered and Phil was there in front of him glowing with angelic fury. 

“You don’t-”  


“Tommy is-”  


“He is a traitor!” Phil interrupted him with a thundering voice, Wilbur covered his ears, instinctively as the Angel’s True Voice resounded all around him. Phil immediately closed his mouth shut, fury draining out, guilt appearing on his face. “I… I’m sorry, I… Wil, I didn’t mean to.”

A dry chuckle, bitter and half-hysteric, left Wilbur’s lips as he slowly lowered his hands, fear gone suppressed by a bitter indefinite feeling. “You never mean it, when you do… that.” he said, mocking, but too bitter for his words to be even half as sharp as he intended them to be, a slow smile bent the man’s lips. “Honestly, Phil, if _we_ weren’t your _sons_ _we_ ’d have been dead for a while now.” 

Phil looked down, or well did his equivalent of looking down, which included him slightly bowing his head down, almost in penitence. Wilbur was so used to that that he didn’t even feel pity for the Angel.

A small thud sounded in the silence, almost making Wilbur jump, so much he was tense, something rolled down the roof, a dead birdie fell in front of the closed window. Another chuckle left Wilbur, this one less bitter and sharper, almost cruel.

“In fact,”Wilbur started “I’m pretty sure you killed everything in the radius of… _what_? A hundred meters with that _lie_ of yours.”

Phil’s eyes remained on the dead birdie  on the windowsill for a moment, then another one, guilt ever growing on his face, Wilbur let out another cruel chuckle.

Phil turned to him. “You know I can’t lie, Wil.” 

Wilbur didn’t answer immediately, trying instead to stand up, which apparently was the worst idea he had since the exact moment he tried to, a jolt of pain shot through him, making the wound-that-wasn’t-there ache so much that if it wasn’t that there was nothing there, Wilbur was sure it would have started bleeding again.

Phil was by his side immediately, Wilbur refused his help, shooting a glare to his ‘father’. 

  
“You can’t lie, but you can say it if you believe that to be the truth.” 

Phil sighed. “I know you wont believe me, you weren’t there… but Tommy betrayed us-”

“Us? As in you and…. _Who_?” Wilbur asked, interrupting the Angel once more, as he held on the armrest as if it was a lifeline as he tried to remain upright. A sense of unease in his chest, because he… he had the foreboding that he knew who the other was.

_But surely his father hadn’t left his brother alone, because he somehow upset the Blood God right?_ Right?

“Technoblade-” 

And Wilbur didn’t hear anything else that the Angel said, the name repeating in his mind. At first he felt shock, and disappointment and then… anger, burning and never ending and fizzling like blaze powder on skin filled his veins.

_His father… his father had left Tommy for that boar-masked bastard?_

“You… you-”a chuckle, followed by a cough as he almost choked on his sudden chuckle. “You left Tommy, _your own son_! For what? For that son of a bitch of a _False God_?!” 

“It… isn’t like that, Wil. Believe me, I had my reasons, Tommy… he, he sided with our enemies he…” 

“He is a kid, Phil! A kid! Who knows what the hell kind of lies they filled his head with! And you left him with them!” he yelled, not caring how much that hurt. His anger blinding him. He didn’t even care who ‘ _them_ ’ were, anyone outside of him was a liar, a possible betrayer, someone who’d fill his little brother’s head with lies and lies and lies…

_He needed to find Tommy._

__

__

_ He needed to save him._

“He is a soldier, he is no kid, Wilbur.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, his hands gripping just a little tighter on the armrest. “Oh, please… stop it with that ‘ _soldier_ ’ talk. Me and Toms are humans not Angels, just cause we brandish a sword that doesn’t make us any less our age.”

“You are my sons-”

“Yeah, and I basically raised myself and Tommy, and I’m pretty human if I may say so myself, never learned to be all that otherworldly… you know, since you passed all your time with Technoblade.”

“Will…” Phil stopped himself, and sighed once more. Theirs an old argument, with an added new spice, but still the same old argument, Wilbur knew that Phil would likely try to drop it as he always did.

And he wasn’t about to ask the same old question of ‘ _why do you prefer him to us?_ ’ that he always asked, he didn’t want to, he didn’t have the time to. 

  
_He had to find Tommy._

Another jolt of pain, strong enough to make him yelp, shot through his body, Phil sent him a concerned look.

But first, if he wanted to find Tommy, he had to regain at least a bit of his health, just that tinsy-tiny bit to be able to walk away from Phil’s cottage without passing out at the first three meters of distance.

“Fine.” he hissed, Phil’s gaze snapped into his own. “You want me to stay here, right? To not try and go after my brother… well, then give me a good reason to. One that isn’t about Technoblade.”

Phil remained silent for a moment, two. Wilbur almost thought that the Angel wasn’t gonna talk, instead trying to force him to lay down again especially with the concerned look on his face.

“He abandoned us, after all we did for him. He sided back with those that exiled him, he sided with… Tubbo, who’s basically Schlatt reincarnate at this point…-” Phil stopped for a moment when Wilbur’s expression darkened, his free hand closing into a fist as he thought of the ram-horned traitor that had exiled him, so long ago. Then another thing caught up to him.

“ _Exiled_? Tommy was exiled? Again? _By who_?”

“ _Tubbo_ , he exiled him and then, after me and Techno took care of him, helping him recover from his disastrous exile… He just… he sided with him, he sided back with the person who betrayed him first.” It was clear to Wilbur that Phil was trying to rein in his True Voice.

And he also couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Tubbo, Tommy’s best friend, had… _exiled Tommy_? That wasn’t possible, Tubbo and Tommy were inseparable, he’d never betray him… why would he? ‘ _He’s basically Schlatt reincarnate_ ’, Phil’s words sounded in his mind, mixing up with  his confusion, in a downward spiral of anger, confusion and hatred, and then suddenly calm washed over him.

Being best friends meant nothing, Schlatt had left him to die, years ago when the Gods wanted to play with them. And Tubbo had betrayed Tommy as soon as he had power.

_Fucking figure_.

Wilbur sighed, his breath a little shaky from a barely suppressed chuckle,  _why was his go-to reaction laughter… he wasn’t sure, he didn’t remember this being this common in the past_. 

“I… don’t agree with you. But I can see why you’d see it that way.” he said, carefully nitpicking the right words, so that his wasn’t a lie but not truth either.

A slight smile curved Phil’s lips at that. “I knew you’d see it, I knew it.”  


“I repeat, I’m not agreeing with your choice, Phil, just… understanding it.”

The smile got slightly smaller but still there. A spark of determination in his father’s eyes, like he thought he could convince him to side with him against Tommy with time.

Wilbur suppressed another chuckle, this one more mocking than anything, at the thought.  _As if he’d ever go against his little brother_.

He just needed Phil’s help to get better, then he’d be on his way to save Tommy from those traitors that were filling his head with  _lies_.

He’d help Tommy see the  _truth_. 

_ Yes, the truth. _

_  
That the only person Tommy could trust was Wilbur, and Wilbur alone. _

A voice impossibly similar to his own, if higher in tone, more echoey, disembodied like wind over snow, tinted with the innocence of death and the cold of nothingness, filled the silence abruptly ripping Wilbur out of his thoughts.

“Hey, Phil! I saw smoke coming out the chimney and I thought to come visit-” 

Wilbur’s head turned, fast almost to the point of too fast, to the door, in front of which stood… _himself_. 

A paler, grayer, way more dead and dull version of him, almost translucent, eyes a dull, dull dark gray, a yellow sweater stained with…  _blue_? Just like its pale, gray fingers.

_The copy? Ghost? Thing? What ever it was_ …  _stared_ at him silent, mouth still open in that phrase that had come to a halt.

Then its expression changed, shock, turning to confusion, then hatred. The dull dark gray turning into bleeding black.

“You!” The ghost shouted “It’s all your _fault_!”


	4. What can you do if you are your own worst enemy?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ghostbur will forget all about this, about this confrontation with the one he calls Alivebur, the moment his attention shifts from the present moment to another, he himself knows this. But right now, the ghost can only focus on the burning anger he feels at the sight of his alive self. 
> 
> Maybe he and Wilbur aren’t all that different after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter, there is some heavy stuff mentioned here(like self-harm, attempted suicide and self-starvation) by Wilbur quite nonchalantly.
> 
> [Also guys tell me if you think I should add more tags(and what you think they should be) or up the raiting.]

> “ _Hey I swallowed your pride_
> 
> _To_ _gather up confrontation_
> 
> _That_ _you have so long denied_
> 
> _Collective Soul, Generate_ ”

Phil  could  only watch, uncertain how to react, as his son and… the ghost of his son( _how was that even possible, if Wilbur was back, how could Ghostbur, as the ghost wanted to be called, be here_ _too_ _?_ ) kept staring at each other.

Ghostbur still standing in front of the open door, the cold from outside seeping in, tempering the warmth inside the cottage, and then almost snuffing it out. Phil almost shivered, not at the physical cold, that didn’t do much to him, but at the strange feeling coming from the ghost.

Since the first moment he had met him, Ghostbur always exuded a form of desperate happiness, like he was always on the brink of collapsing and crying but kept smiling through it all, but now… Now he felt  _wrong_ , so wrong, and cold and acid and terrible that it made Phil want to scream with his True Voice, high and loud till the heavens opened and his brothers came down to help(though he knew they wouldn’t, he wasn’t one of them anymore. He stopped being one of them the moment he fell in love, the moment he fathered two sons… Angel shouldn’t create life,  _he had_ .).

Wilbur made a half step back,  a brief flash of pain passing on his face , his eyes searching, searching for something… a weapon probably, to defend himself.

Phil opened his mouth, ready to reassure him that Ghostbur meant no harm, but then he closed it, when Ghostbur’s expression changed from confusion to…  _hatred_ .  His dark gray eyes usually vacant now, black, and bleeding, focused and sharp.

Something that the Angel had never seen on the face of the peaceful ghost, and then Ghostbur screamed, the airy quality of his voice turning into the shrill shriek of a Ghast, The ghost flung himself towards his alive-self.

And Phil was still  too shocked, by the absurd situation,  by the impossibility of it and by the  _wrongness_ that was coming from Ghostbur in waves, to react.

“It’s all your fault! Your fault!” the ghost yelled, pale gray fingers stained blue, gripping Wilbur’s shoulders with the force of a vice, no matter how much the other tried to free himself.

“You ruined everything! You destroyed everything! Our L’Manberg-”

Wilbur passed from shocked and slightly afraid to angry and snarling, his eyes burning with possessiveness and anger, he grabbed the ghost’s  semi-physical  arms, flinching, likely, at the deadly cold emanating from him. “ _My L’Manberg_ , it’s mine not yours, you grayed out copy.” he hissed

“Yours?!” Ghostbur repeated in a surprised yell, black trickling down his face from his blacked out eyes dripping down onto the floor staining the carpet, as real as Ghostbur never really seemed to be before now, and it was wrong, it felt wrong, wrong… _wrong_. “You tried to raze it to the ground, you bastard! You put all of our friends at risk! You put Tommy at risk!”

Wilbur pushed against Ghostbur’s grip, making the ghost take a few ‘steps’ back, his hands closing tighter on the ghost’s arms.  Any trace of fear had left his face, his eyes burning with anger, unhinged exactly like the last time Phil had saw them. “ _Don’t talk about him._ ” he said, voice low and  sharp like the cutting edge of a diamond covered sword . “I don’t care that you look like me, you are not me,  you cannot be , so see to not talk of  _my_ Tommy, or I’ll make you pay.”  
  
A dry, cold chuckle so similar to those that Phil had already heard from his resurrected son left Ghostbur. “’ _You’ll make me pay_ ’, uh, how? You can’t hurt me. Even if you ran me through with a sword, I’d still be here” a slow smile started curving the ghost’s pale lips,  black staining them. He looked like a negative image of the last memory, Phil had of his son, black were was once red. The ghost continued, a cruel edge in his voice:  “And I’d make your life hell, it’s what you deserve. It’s what we deserve. If we have to live, I’ll make sure none of us enjoys it.” 

Wilbur stared into the pitch black of the ghost’s eyes, unafraid, and then he pushed the ghost away, hands going from the ghost’s arms to his chest. Ghostbur didn’t move.

“Afraid, Alivebur?” the ghost asked, his usually slightly fixed, vacant smile, now more similar to his alive self’s then it had ever been.

Wilbur scoffed, suppressing another shiver caused by the deathly cold coming from the ghost that was slowly creeping through his body, making him feel like death itself was touching him, slowly sipping out his life. “As if.” he answered “I’m not afraid of a mere copy.”

“I’m not your copy” Ghostbur hissed even as his smile grew, more black pouring out of his mouth, making him look even more nightmarish, as he got even closer to his alive self. “I’d never be a pathetic, sick, twisted bastard like you. I’d never destroy _my_ country, I’d never hurt _my_ little brother…” 

For a moment, Wilbur looked at the ghost, saying nothing, as if left speechless by the accusation. “I’ve never hurt _my_ brother. All I did was to protect-”

Ghostbur pushed against Wilbur, semi-physical hands gripping so tight that they went  _though_ , losing all solidity to sink in the other’s shoulders, Wilbur’s words turning into  a hiss of discomfort. “’ _All you did was to protect him_ ’? Even breaking his  _trust_? Even using him as your little slave to dig all the resources you needed? Even breaking his wrist when he tried to call Tubbo for help? Even locking him in that hole of a room you called ‘his’ room? Even yelling at him that he was nothing without you?!” Ghostbur’s voice raised, and raised in volume till he was yelling those last words.

And Phil listened horrified, he’d never thought that Wilbur would hurt Tommy, the two were always so close, so united. He never even contemplated the possibility that that could have happened, not even knowing how off the rails his oldest son had got near the end.

He only distantly registered in his mind that in this exact moment, as he looked like an undead nightmare, black spilling from his eyes and mouth and from the gash on his chest that had reopened, staining the yellow fabric, Ghostbur was  _remembering everything_ .

“You were trying to _break him_ , not protect him!”

Wilbur snarled. “How  _dare you!_ I would never! It wasn’t to break him, it was to make him understand! I had to!” 

It was only when Phil realized that Ghostbur’s hands were slowly but surely inching towards his alive-self’s neck that he snapped out of his shock. Stepping in between the two,  pushing them apart.

Barely stopping a shiver when he touched the ghost, he even felt  _wrong_ right now, not as solid as usual, but almost like slightly denser, oilier, mist.

“ _Stop_ ” he said, his voice way firmer than he intended to, a slight hint of his True Voice showing through, making Wilbur flinch and Ghostbur hiss like a creeper about to explode.

The two were still looking at each other, Wilbur in anger and Ghostbur in hatred.  


_ That wouldn’t do. _

He moved away his arm, covering Wilbur from Ghostbur’s gaze with his wing. Shooting a glance to his son when he noticed him about to say something, Wilbur glared at him, but said nothing.

The ghost’s black eyes still focused on where he knew Wilbur was, staring so intently like he could see him through the wall of black feathers, then his gaze started drifting away, till their eyes met.

And for the first time, Phil was able to peer into his son’s soul, and what he saw made him shiver. 

There was a beast deep in that black, oily abyss, a beast hissing and snarling, evil and cruel and gone, gone,  _gone_ … twisted,  _blind_. So lost in its own delusions to not be able to see reality anymore.

Then the black started to fade, slowly turning to dark, lifeless gray. The smirk losing all sharpness returning the vacant smile, Phil had gotten used to, the beast faded away.

“Phil!” the ghost exclaimed rather cheerfully, the black slowly fading from his face. All was back to normal, like it had never happened, like it had been just an illusion, and yet there was still a black stain on the carpet, oily and foul, reeking of anger and hatred.

Phil offered a little smile to the ghost, still hiding his son behind his wing. “Ghostbur.”  he said,  voice calm and patient, like it always was.

“I was walking through the snow… I don’t like it very much, it makes me fizzle and melt.” a little frown appeared on the ghost’s face before disappearing, so quickly that it might have looked a trick of the light, if it wasn’t that translucent as he was, light didn’t create any shade on his face. “But I saw smoke coming from the chimney, and so I thought to visit”

“I see, Ghostbur, and I’m glad you thought of coming to visit me” he started, smile gentle, Wilbur from behind his wing was starting to get antsy, aggression coming from him in waves. “But I’m quite busy right now.”

“Oh” the ghost sighed, his smile dulling a bit. Something blue and powdery started collecting in one of his hands (Phil had yet to understand what exactly ‘Blue’ was, at first he had thought that it was literally simply some pinches of the pigment blue, but after seeing it literally appear from nowhere in his son’s ghost hands, he wasn’t sure anymore), the ghost looked at it. Then smiled, vacantly, once again. “I’ll come back visit some other time, then!” he trilled.

Phil nodded. “Hopefully we’ll be able to pass some time together in you next visit.”

Ghostbur’s smile grew. “I’d love to! But for now, bye, Phil! See you sometime soon!” the ghost waved energetically, reminding Phil of when his son was still little, and full of hope and happiness, when the beast that now nested in his soul was nothing but an unreal nightmare, before floating out of the cottage closing the door behind him.

Phil knew that he wouldn’t see Ghostbur for a long, long time. Everything that had just happened too distressing for the poor ghost, he’d probably forget everything about this ‘visit’ even his promise.

Phil looked at the door for a few more moments, before retracting his wing, and turning to his son, who had now a frown on his face, arms crossed.

“Oh, so, creepy copy-me gets your kindness, uh? But all I get is a ‘ _you are a soldier, Wil_ ’, uh?” 

“It’s… different.” Phil said, his eyes searching for anything that could imply any form of injury, he didn’t know what the prolonged contact of an angered ghost could do to someone as fragile as his son was now. Especially since technically that ghost was… _his own twisted soul_. ( _Again, how was that even possible?_ )

Wilbur’s eyes darkened, as he uncrossed his arms, then he scoffed. “Of course, it’s different. That _thing_ is not me, is it?” he asked, something bitter hiding not at all well in his voice. “It’s better than me, isn’t it? With those honey sweet smiles and sunshine attitude. You intervened only when you feared I was gonna turn it into another me didn’t you?”

Phil said nothing, confused by his son’s words. He acted to protect him, _what did he mean by what he had just said?_

A little bitter, sharp smile bent his son’s lips. “Figure.” he muttered under his breath. “You know what? I don’t really care.  What I want to know is what is that thing.”

“He isn’t a thing, Wilbur. He is you.”

Wilbur looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Me? Maybe when it’s angry, but after? No, I was never that…” Wilbur’s voice faded, his eyes falling to the black stain on the carpet.

‘ _You were once, when you were_ _younger_ _…_ ’ Phil was about to say, but Wilbur was faster interrupting him before he even had the time to even try to speak. “You know what, on a second thought, I don’t really care. It’s a washed out copy, that’s all I need to know.”

“Wil…” 

“ _What?_ ”

“Was it true?” he asked, and even though he was concerned for his son, he clearly was still in pain and he had passed out only a few hours ago, he shouldn’t be already up, he should be taking it slow and not yelling and almost fighting with his ghost-self, he needed to know if what Ghostbur had said was the truth.

He needed to know if… if his son had really hurt the other, yes, Tommy may be a traitor, not his son anymore. But to Wilbur, he still was his brother and if he had hurt him despite that…  _did that meant that his son was far too gone?_

“Why do you care?” he asked instead of answering, even more closed off than he was before.

“’ _Why do… I care?_ ’” Phil repeated, perplexed. _Did Wilbur really think he didn’t care about them?_

Wilbur rolled his eyes, then nodded and… then _flinched_ , a barely concealed hiss of pain leaving his mouth. This time it was Phil who stopped him from answering.

“You can tell me later, Wil.” he said, concern winning over his deep-rooted nature of having to discern good from evil, deserving from unworthy. “You can go back to the couch if you want. I’ll be preparing you something” he started, his concern making his words come out slightly faster than usual. He wasn’t used to this. 

He almost stopped dead on his tracks, –as Wilbur, without much of a complaint, went to sit down on the couch a relieved sound, almost inaudible, leaving him–, when the realization hit him.

_ He wasn’t used to this, because… he had never done this. _

_ He’d never really took care of his son… always treating him like he’d treat one of his celestial brothers. Like he was one of the troops not… _

_ Oh, Gods…  _

Phil continued moving towards the kitchenette-like space on one side of the ground floor, not all that distant from the ‘living space’, his movements way slower than usual.

“I can’t give you a painkiller infusion, not on an empty stomach” he continued like he hadn’t paused for a few moments.

Wilbur chuckled, bitter and slightly too high pitched, that sound so wrong coming from his son, whose laughs and chuckles were always just in tone with his warm voice…  _how had he broke so much?_

“I seriously doubt an infusion would hurt. I’ve downed regen potions on an empty stomach, and it hasn’t killed me… yet.” his son said, and this time Phil did stop on his tracks, in hearing those words. The light tone with which Wilbur had said them, like he hadn’t just told him that he had practically almost poisoned himself. 

Blaze energy was already dangerous for the human body when taken with all the precautions… one of which, besides the always keeping in check to not use too much of it, was to never, never drink a potion without having ingested something first, so that half of the energy from the powder got absorbed by something that wasn’t the potion’s user body.

Knowing that his son, knowing this, had voluntarily put himself at risk… The blaze energy must have put his body in so much stress,  _was it really a surprise, with this new information, that Wilbur was so light, so thin… that he looked like he had been hollowed out of his energy, his life?_

This wasn’t a mere resurrection gone almost wrong( _even though if Ghostbur was still here was it even an actual resurrection?_ ), this was the product of his son voluntarily poisoning himself. Voluntarily weakening his body, hurting,  _hurting_ … 

_Was it really a surprise that in that terrible room, in that horrible day,_ that Phil almost wanted to forget _, Wilbur had begged him to kill him?_

He must have been in so much pain,  _mentally_ ,  _physically_ … Death must have been release from a terrible existence.

Phil turned, looking at his son, even though Wilbur wasn’t facing him.

“Wil, why did you…?”

“Do that?” Wilbur completed for him, then another chuckle left his mouth, harsh and without any trace of mirth. “I wanted to see what would happen. Turns out that overdosing on blaze energy is way too slow of a death…” a little pause, as Phil could just watch, his mind blanked out at the idea that his son had tried to do such a thing, to take his own life like that. “Tommy found me… sweet, dear Tommy, my Tommy. He nursed me back to health, or as close to health as he could with what we had in that underground hole we called home.” his voice had gotten lower, and Phil could feel the guilt dripping from his tone, but not because of what he had done but for having _forced_ Tommy to have to save him.

“Wil…”  


Wilbur turned to him, glaring. “Don’t” he hissed. “I already know everything about how those that kill themselves end up trapped in soul sand, condemned to become fuel to soulfires, no need to repeat that.” 

Phil said nothing.  _Had he really failed that much that his son thought that he was about to reprimand him for having tried to…?_

He let the silence remain for a long moment. “I wont give you the infusion if you don’t eat something first.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes. “Fine.” he said. “I mean it’s kinda ‘bout time that I eat something anyway… I mean not counting the years between what I last remember and now, I haven’t eaten in like… what? Four days? And I don’t  think a quarter of a baked potato eaten in haste before attacking L’Manberg counts as a real meal.”

Once again Phil was shocked by the nonchalance with which Wilbur talked about all of that. About what…  _had he admitted that he had also tried starving himself, or just that they didn’t have enough food in Pogtopia?_

_ Why hadn’t Tommy noticed anything? Why had he left his brother arrive to this? _

Phil arrived in the kitchenette, after what appeared to him as an eternity. “I’ll prepare something light then.” he said, trying to not show how disturbed he was from the information his son so nonchalantly told him. Like he didn’t really care if his father knew… like he thought that Phil wouldn’t care.

For a single moment, before focusing on preparing a light soup for his son, Phil wanted to go back in time and punch his past-self in the face, for always ‘reassuring’ his son by telling him that  _he was a soldier, that soldiers didn’t weep that they fought, that soldiers always fought on no matter what._

_That nothing was more important than winning the fight, and then the war._

_He had really fucked up his sons… hadn’t he?_


	5. An Angel’s care can cure any soul except for those that don’t want to be helped.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil will do his best, even though he doesn’t really know how to help, he has always treated his son like one of his celestial brothers, a soldier, a part of his troop. 
> 
> Or Phil doesn’t know how to treat his son like a son but he’ll try his very best… which isn’t much.
> 
> Meanwhile Ghostbur finds someone he really cares about alone, and decides to convince him to follow him in an adventure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Mentions of abuse and emotional manipulation in the last section of the chapter.

> “ _The crux of military operations lies in the pretense of accommodating one’s self to the designs of the enemy_
> 
> _Sun Tzu, The Art of War”_

_Bitter._

This is how Wilbur felt. 

Bitter just as the infusion of natural painkillers that Phil gave him, so bitter in fact that had made his stomach turn and had him focus to keep everything he had just eaten(a light vegetable soup, almost as bland as water but Wilbur was half sure that it wasn’t Phil’s fault for that, but that he had almost entirely fucked up his own taste buds with his abuse of potions) down.

This is how he was still feeling, contempt and anger burning slow just below his skin. His mind filled with a constant repetition of the latest happenings: the gray washed-out copy screaming at him, accusing him with words that cut like knives and hands as cold as death clamped on his shoulders; the way Phil had reacted immediately just as the copy got angrier and angrier; the gentle tilt in his voice as he talked to it, the care filling his words.

_ His father had never been that kind, that caring to him. _

The only words ready for him were always the same: ‘ _You are a soldier, Wil. Soldiers don’t cry, they fight. They don’t stop, they fall and rise again._ ’, never a word of reassurance, never a compliment.

The only proud smile he ever got from his father was from the first time he  _killed_ a monster of the night, well… technically, he just vanquished it as skeletons weren’t alive anymore.

Wilbur could remember that moment as if it had happened just yesterday, even when most of the memories of his childhood were vague and confused, elusive like wisps of smoke in the wind, that memory was clear. So much he had clung onto that memory.

The single memory where his father had been proud of him.

It had been cold that night, and he had been angry, the angriest he had ever been in his young life. He had ran out, into the dangerous night, a sword, its weight unfamiliar(at the time, now Wilbur felt like he had forgotten what it meant to not have one in hand) in his hands.

He hadn’t meant to run that far from home, he hadn’t meant to get in that situation, a cliff behind him and a skeleton, the clicking of dry bones against each other had filled his ears for months after that night, in front of him.

He hadn’t even realized that his father had gotten there, hovering with his wings open wide invisible in the dark night sky.

Wilbur wasn’t exactly sure of what that prompted him at the time, but he remembered sprinting towards the skeleton, heavy sword raised.

He remembered charging, anger boiling in his veins. And then a crash and a  _crack_ the skeleton falling in a heap of  inanimate bones,  its skull cracked, tiny fissures spiraling from the point where the sword had cracked open the bone and down till the orbit.

Wilbur remembered to have stood there, staring, shocked and yet relived that the first monster he had ever met hadn’t been a zombie or even worse a creeper. Wilbur remembered hearing a whoosh of air cut by razor-like feathers, his father landing in front of the edge of the cliff, his face illuminated by the glow of his halo and the slight azure glow of his eyes.

But most of all, with the uttermost clarity, he remembered the smile curving his lips. Proud, proud as Wilbur had never seen him before.

Proud as his father had never been, not even when Wilbur played his first composition, not even when Wilbur had sung his first song. ‘ _Soldiers don’t create, Wil._ ’ he’d always tell him, voice almost condescending. 

But the first time Wilbur had killed something, that first time, his father had been proud.

That had been the first and only time Phil had been proud of him, after that no matter how much he hunted, no matter how much he killed(all monsters of the night), Phil had never smiled to him.

Had never told him ‘ _I’m proud of you_ ’. Phil had never had that soft, gentle tilt in his voice when talking with him.

Wilbur balled his hands in fists around the purplish wool of ‘his’ blanket, that was now over his shoulders almost like a mock cloak, in an attempt to keep him warm. 

_It didn’t do that much._

Wilbur still felt cold, he always felt cold, as if the coldness from Pogtopia, from the ravine, had seeped into his body and refused to leave.

_ Click, click, click. _

His eyes widened as that sound repeated in his mind.

_ L’Manberg was gone, gone, gone!  _

There was no more button to press, there was no more country to blow up. 

_ It was done, done, done! _

_ Click, click, clickclickclick. _

And for a moment all he could see, instead of the warm, cozy living space of the cottage ( _Phil wasn’t there, he never was there when Wilbur needed him. –Phil was just a floor away, if Wilbur really wanted he could have just called… but he didn’t_ want _him, he didn’t want to show his father what kind of_ deluded disappointment he had turned into–), he saw rough stone walls, blacked in streaks by smoke and buttons, of all colors and sizes, filling every inch of space possible.

Wilbur blinked, once, twice,  _thrice_ … trying to send the image away, to send the sound away from his thoughts.

And while he managed the former he failed with the latter, the ‘ _click, click, click_ ’ filling his every thought.

_ He needed his brother. _

_ He needed his Tommy. _

_ His, his, his… like L’Manberg was his. _

_ Bright, loud, annoying… comforting. _

_ His sweet Tommy that was alone, surrounded by liars and traitors and his own two-faced, ram-horned bastard. _

“Oh, Tommy” he whispered under his breath, eyes staring into the red fire yet not seeing it, a little smile, caring and dark and possessive all wrung into one unsettling expression, curving his lips. “Don’t worry, big brother Wilbur is coming to save you.” a little pause, Wilbur sighed, as his conviction grew stronger and stronger. “I’ve just to get a little better, first. Wait for me, _Toms_.” he whispered to the flames, voice soft, softer than it had been in a long while and yet with paired with the expression on his face, it felt _disturbing_.

_ Discordant. _

_ Like the last notes of an unfinished symphony left forgotten. And never finished. _

.

.

.

I n the following days, Phil felt like he was doing something… _right_. 

His son was getting better, yes he didn’t talk all that much, and when he did his words still hid the sharpness of a poisoned arrow, but he was getting healthier.

  
He flinched less and less from the pain, and ate without complaining all that much.

Whatever had happened that night after the confrontation between him and his own ghost( _still how had that even happened? How was Ghostbur still here?_ ), while he was readying the guest room for Wilbur, Phil had heard only some muttering, yes he could have listened if he wanted to. But he was sure that that wasn’t a thing a parent should do so _he hadn’t._

Whatever Wilbur had been telling to himself, it had appeared to have convinced him to accept his help, his care. And on the plus side, Wilbur hadn’t even once mentioned his ‘ _brother_ ’, maybe he was beginning to understand.

_Wilbur didn’t like traitors, that much Phil was sure_. And accepting that Tommy was one was probably hurting him just as much as the aftereffects of his butchered resurrection,  or maybe  _not_.

Phil wasn’t sure anymore of what the relationship between them was, Wilbur still appeared to care, but after what Ghostbur had said… d _id he really? Or was that just a mask, a facade, his son presented?_

Phil wasn’t sure and he wasn’t even sure on how to bring up the matter without disrupting the fragile equilibrium that had created between them

“Phil?” 

Phil was brought back to reality by his son’s voice, it still hurt to hear him call him by his name, but Phil understood, he hadn’t deserved the title of ‘father’, not after how much he had failed Wilbur.

“Yes, Wil?”

“Why have you been hiding all of your potions?”

Phil felt the smile on his lips, fall at that question. He didn’t think that Wilbur would have noticed, but of course he would have. His son was a soldier, a General, disgraced or not, turned terrorist or not… he was still just as observant.

“I… was worried.” he said, leaving it at that, knowing that if he tried to explain further, his impossibility to lie would have forced him to say the full extent of his thoughts behind that single action.

“Worried?” Wilbur asked, for a moment appearing as if he wasn’t understanding the meaning behind his words, then his eyes widened a bit, darkening, a bitter chuckle, still too high pitched left him. “Oh, _really_?” he said mockingly, a slow smile growing on his lips before turning into a scowl, Phil almost couldn’t follow the swiftness with which his son went through emotions. “What? Did you think I’d try to kill myself if I could get my hands on some potions?” he asked then.

Phil sighed, knowing that he couldn’t deny it even if he tried so he nodded. “I had that fear, yes.”

Wilbur’s smile returned, this time too wide, too wrong. All the hopes that had begun to build inside the Angel that his son was getting better shattered like glass falling on the floor, the beast was still there lazily clawing its way around his son’s twisted soul, breaking at the paper thin walls of his fragile sanity.  
  
“Oh, wow. The Angel of Death is scared to see his son die, what a surprise.” 

This time, it was time for Phil to flinch. He hadn’t heard that title, in years.

The Angel of Death, that was a title he… had once been proud of having been bestowed with, he had been proud of the fear it struck into his foes, the way it perfectly fit with his black wings and with his sword always covered in fresh blood.

He had been proud of that title… until he took the only life he never wanted to take.

_ His son’s. _

Phil would never forget the way Wilbur’s blood had felt on his hands as if it was burning them, the way he felt his own non-existant soul cry out in despair as his son died.

“I’ve never wanted you to die, Wil.”

Wilbur chuckled once again. “The way you plunged that sword in between my lungs says otherwise.”

“You… asked me to.”

“And that solves everything doesn’t it?” Wilbur said, his smile still too wide, his eyes sparkled unsettlingly, as if the sparkling fire burning through a fuse was trapped behind his irises.

Phil said nothing, not knowing what to say to that. Because in his mind it did…  _he was just, he was just… fulfilling the last wish of his deranged son_ , but he also was sure that Wilbur wouldn’t take that as an answer. That that answer wasn’t human enough to make sense to his son.

Wilbur didn’t press on with that, continuing to smile like a cat that caught the canary.

It was _unsettling_ to see, to say the least.

And once again made him feel even more guilty, if he had been…  _better_ , if he hadn’t treated Wilbur as he would one of his celestial brothers… maybe his son wouldn’t have gotten to this point.

Falling in an abyss of madness so deep that not even death had been able to free him from it.

After that conversation, from that point on, Phil stopped hiding his potions, even though he still kept an eye on Wilbur to be sure that his son wasn’t tempted by the destructive magical shine of them.

_ Wilbur didn’t even look at them. _

‘ _It’s a too slow death, Phil. If I were to try again I want my death to be as quick as possible, you know. Not like choking on my own blood for a start_ ’ Wilbur had said to him, chuckling darkly, after he noticed the way he attentively followed him through the cottage.

All the while, Wilbur continued getting better physically, mentally… well at least he wasn’t getting worse.

The Angel wanted to help, but his son wouldn’t let him, and while he wasn’t the type to give up, Phil thought that maybe he could get used to it.

He was, after all, the best, and oldest, friend of the Blood God, Technoblade, and the immortal was quite insane in his own way, obsessive and pretty much one-minded on his objectives. So maybe he could get used to his son’s mark of madness like he got used to Techno’s.

Maybe he could even ask Techno on some pointers on how to not get on Wilbur’s nerves.  


Maybe hunts and bloodshed would be enough to keep his son calm and his insanity sated as they did with Technoblade.

Phil had settled into a mostly peaceful lifestyle after the Doomsday War, but he would take on the mantle of the Angel of Death again, hunting monsters alongside his son if that meant that Wilbur would get better, that he would understand that Phil was trying his best to be what he hadn’t been until now.

Somewhere underground, in a room of an abandoned stronghold, a man with glowing crimson eyes and face hidden behind a boar’s skull, screamed, clawed hands gripping his own deep pink hair as the choir of voices in his head yelled, the same old choir but with a new addition: ‘ _Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne! Madness for the Mad King!!_ ’

* * *

If anyone asked Tommy would say that he was doing well, more than well actually. He and his best friend had made up, their friendship coming out of the whole ‘Exile’ ordeal even stronger than before.

But if Tommy was to be sincere with himself… _he wasn’t doing all that well_.

Yes, he and Tubbo had made up, _which was fantastic_! Don’t get him wrong, but even if he had gotten his best friend back… he had lost his home.

New L’Manberg was gone, forever, a crater was all that was left of it. Of the country he and… his brother, and the others built. 

The country for which they rebelled, the country that costed him his precious disks and then his own brother.

Sometimes when Tommy felt particularly childish, when he ignored the fact that he had stopped being really a child the moment he put on that uniform and smiling, smiling because he had yet to see the horrors of war and all that it would bring, along side his brother (Wilbur was smiling too, charming and slightly arrogant, determination burning in his eyes that were still soft not yet darkened by the never ending madness that swallowed him whole in Pogtopia) he yelled: ‘ _For L’Manberg!_ ’.

  
Sometimes when he ignored all of that, he found himself thinking if all of this would have happened if he and Wilbur hadn’t decided to found a country. He wondered what could have been like if he and Wilbur just… just went along with the rules of the Kingdom like everyone else did before their arrival.

He wandered. And all he could see in his mind was him and Wilbur in a log cabin on the coast, his brother playing the guitar, and singing, voice warm and full of life. Eyes clear and not clouded by insanity and paranoia. All Tommy could see was Ghostbur but alive and breathing, playing songs on his guitar as Tommy sang off-key along with him.

In his thoughts they were happy. In his thoughts he and Tubbo never got divided by Dream… Tommy suppressed a shudder. 

In his thoughts, Tommy never had to fear anything from Dream, and had never had the misfortune to be an enemy of his.

Maybe then they could have really been friends. Maybe Dream would have never hurt him as much as he did… or maybe he would have anyway. Maybe Dream would have played his sick, little games with him and Wilbur even if they had never moved a finger against him.

“Tommy!” 

Tommy jumped out of fright, then flinched, almost yelping in pain, when the handle of his ax hit him in the foot. He turned, his brain taking a moment to process the voice he had just heard.

Airy and happy, and way too high in tone.

“G-Ghostbur?” 

The ghost nodded enthusiastically, floating near him and taking the ax in his hands. “Yep!” he answered. “And here, you dropped it.”

Tommy took the ax from the ghost’s hands, trying to avoid touching them, the cold emanating from the other always made him…  _almost jealous, it must have been nice to not have to worry about feeling things anymore_.

“Yeah, thanks, Wil.” he said without even thinking on how he was calling the other, the thoughts that had been swimming around his mind getting in the foreground again.

Then he froze.

Ghostbur had stopped smiling, his expression more serious than he’d ever seen him be. “Don’t call me that.” the ghost said “I’m not him.”

And in that exact moment, with his tone so flat, Tommy was reminded of Wilbur, but not his brother, the Wilbur of Pogtopia, the Wilbur that went around the ravine with eyes filled with mania and emotions flickering and changing quicker than the wind changed direction in a storm.

Tommy paled and nodded almost too quickly. “Yeah, of course. I know you aren’t hi-him… Ghostbur… sorry, I… I didn’t… I…” Tommy stopped himself, hands gripping tight on the wooded handle of the ax, eyes on the ground as he was almost too afraid to look up.

_ Wilbur didn’t like when he stuttered. _

_Wilbur yelled at him when he stuttered._ Telling him that it was a waste of his time and to ‘ _fucking get a grip on himself before he made sure he’d never do that again_ ’.

Wilbur yelled at him till all Tommy could do was stare at the stone under them, and stop breathing because he felt a panic attack raising and knew that that would anger his brother even more.

Wilbur then hugged him, and caressed his hair, and whispered soft, sweet words to him. Letting him melt in their hug and then gave him the whole day off from his duties.

_ But… but Ghostbur wasn’t Wilbur… right? _

_ Ghostbur was all the good that had survived in his brother. _

“Tommy?” Ghostbur said, low and worried, big dark gray eyes looking at him with care even if just a tad bit too vacant. “I’m not angry, don’t worry. It’s fine!” the ghost said then, voice a crescendo of forced happiness, his tone too high like he wanted to cry but didn’t.

Had Tommy caused that?

_ Oh, no, he didn’t want to hurt Ghostbur.  _

_ Stupid, stupid idiot no wonder Wilbur and Dream treated him like he was a stupid child, he was… _

“Here! Take some Blue, Tommy! It seems like you need it.” Ghostbur said, voice sing-songy as he all but shoved a handful of Blue towards him. Tommy moved the ax so he’d held it in one hand and took the Blue with the other. 

As soon as the powdery bluet substance touched his skin, he felt just a little better, and the Blue grew bluer.

“Thanks, Ghostbur… I really needed it.” he said to the ghost, forcing a little smile, he hoped it didn't look as fake as it felt.

Ghostbur’s smile grew, still vacant but more genuinely happy. Then he frowned slightly. “Tommy? Have you seen Friend? I’ve been searching for him but he isn’t anywhere! And I’m getting really worried.”  
  
Tommy’s Blue grew even bluer. As he frowned, _how was he going to tell Ghostbur that his pet-sheep had died with L’Manberg?_

“I… I… I di-didn’t, sorry.” he said, lying instead of telling the ghost the truth.

Ghostbur frowned even more. “Oh.” a little pause “You… you would tell me if something bad happened to Friend right?”

Tommy nodded, too energetically, too quickly.

Luckily the ghost seemed to believe him, a smile bending his lips once again. 

“Okay! Well… I’ll continue my search then. Thank you for your help, Tommy!”

Said that the ghost started floating away, and Tommy made to deposit the Blue in his travel bag, but then Ghostbur stopped, quite abruptly. His entire ghostly body seizing as if he had been struck by lightning.

  
The ghost turned back, his dark gray eyes looking almost too dark, too focused. Tommy held back a shiver. 

“Tommy?”

“Y-Yeah, Ghostbur?”

“Why are you here alone?”

The question took the boy by surprise and it took him a moment to answer. “I… well, after… what happened, I’ve decided to, just, take sometime for me? You know, like to find myself or something”

Ghostbur cocked his head to the side. “Oh, Okay. So… you are here completely by your own volition right? Tubbo didn’t do anything this time…”

Tommy’s eyes widened.  _Did Ghostbur think he had been...-_ “No, no! Me and Tubbo are friends just like…  _before!_ I’m here only because I want to.”

Ghostbur smiled sweet and slightly vacant. “Oh. That’s good! I’m glad you two are friends again! I know you missed him so much… so, I’m happy it’s all good again!”

Tommy smiled to the ghost. 

“Oh, I’ve an idea!”

“Oh? What idea, Ghostbur?”

The ghost’s smile grew sly, making Tommy think of Wilbur before L’Manberg, when it was just he, Wilbur and Tubbo in the back of the Camarvan, brewing potions and jokingly calling them ‘drugs’.

“Why don’t we go explore Techno’s old cabin?”

Tommy’s smile fell. “N-No, I don’t think that’s a good idea…”

Ghostbur smiled wider. “Aw, come on! It will be fun! Techno isn’t there anymore… and the only one who uses it is Phil-” his smile thinned for a moment, eyes darkening. Tommy froze. All he could see in the ghost’s face was his older brother, but not the loving, caring brother he wanted to remember, but the _being_ he had become. “ _And he is never at home anyways._ ” the ghost muttered, his voice less airy almost way too real.

“But… _he could be_. And he doesn’t like me very much at the moment.”

“You are my brother, _he’ll understand!_ ” Ghostbur chimed undeterred. “Let’s go! We can go to my second sewer base after, I’ve a lot of books to show you!”

Tommy sighed, and then nodded.

_ He really hoped no-one was waiting for them in Techno’s old cabin. _


	6. My arms are open as is my heart…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy had the foreboding sense that things were about to get… terrible. He just hadn’t even the slightest inkling of how terrible they would have got.
> 
> Or Wilbur expected that his reunion with his little brother would be a good one… he couldn’t have been more wrong than that. 
> 
> And Phil... Phil finally Falls out of Grace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for this chapter: Mentions of Abuse, mishandling of a panic attack;

> “ _People often prefer to deny what is right before their eyes, especially if they can continue to hold on to what is in their hearts._
> 
> _Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, The Liar”_

Tommy wasn’t exactly sure why, but he  started feeling ill at ease the exact moment they entered the tundra, the already slight uneasy feeling screaming at him in the back of his mind, becoming stronger and stronger.

To the point that, at some point he  even tried to free his hand from Ghostbur’s deadly cold grip, – _the ghost had insisted that they held hands while walking and Tommy really didn’t have it in his heart to deny such a request, not even when the ghost’s touch, slightly immaterial and not-exactly completely there but still_ _unmistakably_ _Wilbur’s, made all the alert bells in his head ring_ –, Ghostbur refused to let him go and all but almost dragged him in the little stretch of path  where  he tried to chicken out of this ‘fun’ exploration.

Around them there was only the sparkly white of the snow, it would have been almost beautiful to look at, if Tommy didn’t feel so off-put by the entire thing. And a soft, barely there, breeze moved some slow falling snowflakes,  making him shiver with its chill. Once again uneasiness flared in the back of his mind . They proceeded through the snow, Ghostbur floating slightly higher than usual to not touch the harmful frozen water.

The first thing that appeared on the horizon right before the cabin became visible, in the dimming light of the evening, were the remains of the Intimidation Tower, Tommy had built, the whole thing torn down apart from a small section of the base, the brittle cobblestone smashed and scratched, long deep cuts scarring the destroyed remains, as if a thousand of sharp knives had rained down the stone.

Tommy held back a shiver, as he remembered sharp, black feathers  for the first time in his life pointed threateningly at him, a pair of wings open and Tommy was certain that he had saw another pair, there and not there like an illusion but with something, something that shrieked and yelled ‘ _don’t look, don’t look, it burns, stop, stop, stop_ ’, inside his head telling him that it was all real. 

Those cuts  one the stone were the result of Philza’s storm-like fury, the result of the anger of the Angel of Death, that turned his soft feathers, into obsidian-sharp knives that could cut through Netherite if the Angel had been angry enough.

Ghostbur stopped for a moment, sending him a worried and questioning look, his eyes growing more and more vacant as the time passed, but the ghost was happy enough that he wouldn’t forget his plans for their ‘adventure’, sadly.  So Tommy really couldn’t count on that to try and weasle out of this situation.

Tommy shook his head, and Ghostbur started ‘walking’ again.

Tommy’s unease grew and grew at each step they took towards the cabin, making him feel like his skin was crawling up as they walked up the steps to the front porch. And it was only as the ghost, started turning the handle of the door, that Tommy realized that the yellowy-orange light from the windows wasn’t merely the reflection of the light of the dying evening shining through an empty house  defused and softened by the slight layer of  frost that covered the glass panes, but the soft glow of a tended  to, crackling fire.  
  
The image of sharp feathers reappeared in his mind.

The memory of a thunderous, inhuman voice that resounded from everywhere and nowhere at all, that made the ground shake as if it was about to split open while around them New L’Manberg stopped existing, yelling: “You are not my son, anymore! You traitor!”, soon followed the image of sharp feathers.

“No, Ghostbur, _don’t_!” he yelled, flinching at the loudness of his own voice, and there it went for his plan to pass unnoticed, and at the fear that filled his voice – _he was so weak so useless–_ ,  but it was already too late, Ghostbur had already opened the door. 

And what happened next was just a flurry of movement to the teen’s eyes, something,  no, someone rushed out of the door, pushing Ghostbur away and down with as much force as  they could,  saying: “Stay away from  _my_ brother!”, their voice familiar ( _But it couldn’t be, could it?_ ).

Ghostbur taken by surprise, strangely more solid than usual (his eyes blackening, and such a Wilbur-like anger on his face) tripped over the railing,  free hand trying and failing to get a hold of it,  almost pulling Tommy with him, if it wasn’t that the teen acted quickly enough,  freeing his hand from the ghost’s weakened grip. Ghostbur fell,  _why wasn’t he floating, why was he falling?_ , and then all Tommy heard,  still too shocked to move, was…  _fizzling_ , like hot, boiling oil. Ghostbur was melting, melting,  _melting_ … he wouldn’t die,  _again_ , because of that…  _but he would forget and Tommy didn’t want to be alone… didn’t want to be forgotten here!_

And then the  someone, – _Tommy knew who he was but it couldn’t be, it couldn’t be–_ , that had pushed Ghostbur away, was hugging him tight, way too tight, to the point that Tommy almost couldn’t breathe.  It reminded him of bad-good memories of yelling followed by care.

“Tommy! Oh, Tommy, you are here.” the person, it couldn’t be _him_ , it just couldn’t, said, voice slightly muffled against his hair, and _Tommy wanted out!_ It was too familiar, and too wrong and… and… “Shh, Tommy. Everything is alright. Wilbur’s here, you are safe.” 

And Tommy…

Tommy  _stilled_ , eyes widening. 

_This wasn’t possible._

_Wilbur… Wilbur was dead._

_That’s how Ghostbur even came to be in the first place._

“Shh, it’s alright. I’m here.” said… _Wilbur_ , voice soft and caring and sweet and so similar to how it was before Pogtopia, before L’Manberg, that Tommy, despite himself despite is brain yelling at him to fight, to flight, found himself relaxing in the hug, letting himself believe that everything was fine, even if all of this wasn’t even possible. 

Then Wilbur started repeating himself, over and over and over, till the only word that left his mouth was his name.

And Tommy felt his own blood freeze in his veins.

_No, no, no, nononono…_

He brought his hands between them, against Wilbur’s chest, and he could feel his heart beat under his fingertips, so  _impossibly_ real and alive, and  _pushed_ , but Wilbur didn’t let him go, tightening his ‘hug’ even more till it felt more like a vice than a hug.

_ Just like in Pogtopia. _

Just like every time Wilbur felt like he had messed up  _too much_ , and wanted to make up to him.

Tommy tried pushing him away again.

" _Stop it._ ” Wilbur growled against his hair, softness gone from his voice.

Tommy obeyed out of instinct, even quicker than he would have normally. Not only because he was afraid of making him angry, but because he had learned what not following orders brought.

Not only from Wilbur,  in fact, if he was being honest he thought that,  Wilbur was lenient, his punishments  _just_. He never was too much, he always held back, and he was always soft and caring afterwards. Not only with words but with gestures too, hugging him at every chance, smiling at him, praising him, giving him gifts, playing songs for him (even though all of the songs he wrote in Pogtopia felt…  _wrong_ , soulless, too drenched in obsession to inspire anything more than unease and revulsion).

He had also learned from Dream. Dream who was cruel and twisted his words till they hurt, and that destroyed his stuff every time Tommy angered him even for futile things, Wilbur never got angry over stupid things (only if Tommy hadn’t found enough iron or coal, or if he hadn’t come up from the mine in time, or if he talked with Tubbo without asking Wilbur first and  other reasons, all of them reasonable, in Tommy’s mind at least). Dream was a sick fuck, a manipulative bastard.

_Wilbur was his brother, and_ _he’d_ _never hurt him if Tommy didn’t deserve it._

So when Wilbur told him to stop trying to push him away, Tommy listened.

_Why was he even trying to push Wilbur away in the first place?  
Why was he being such a bitch? He should be happy. Wilbur was here, Wilbur was back._

_He should be happy… then why he was feeling like he couldn’t breathe? Like his heart wanted to collapse in on itself?_

Wilbur’s voice had softened again, as he praised him for having listened so quickly.  His hands alternating between gripping at his shirt, like Wilbur couldn’t believe that he really was there, and drawing soothing circles on his back.

Whether he wanted or not, knowing he couldn’t back away, Tommy found himself relaxing in the hug, melting in his brother’s arms. The warmth coming from Wilbur’s body warding off the cold of the tundra, and Tommy started thinking that maybe… just maybe things would go well. 

Yes, Wilbur’s hug was too tight, and felt cagey, but other than that ‘stop it’, his brother was being sweet and caring and really it was all that Tommy had wanted since New L’Manberg blew up.

Someone  who would hug him and whisper to him that everything was going to be alright,  someone who would give him more affection than just some words. Don’t get him wrong, he understood that the others where busy, that he wasn’t the only one that had lost his home… yet, he just wanted someone to hug him. 

He was just sixteen, _for the Gods’ sake!_ , and he had fought three wars, had almost died twice, had seen his own brother lose himself to complete and utter madness, he had been exiled and hurt, and hurt, and hurt till all he could remember of his life were only the bad parts.

Till every positive memory was so intrinsically tainted by pain and bitterness, that he had forgot what it meant to not hate remembering your own life.

He had just wanted someone to take a tiny, tinsiest bit of their time to give him more than just a ‘ _I’m sorry, Tommy_ ’, just a pat on his shoulder, or a glance with eyes filled with pity.

He just wanted to be held and cared for, just for a little while.

To not have to stifle his want to scream at the sky and the sadistic, sick godly fucks up there that had fucked his life over just because he was the son of one of their rebelling celestial creations.

_ It wasn’t his fault if Philza had fallen in love, oh so long ago. _

It wasn’t his fault if he was his son… _not anymore, not anymore_ … Phil didn’t see him as a son anymore. Taking once more the side of his best friend, the immortal warrior, the Blood God, the boar-masked bitch that had given only more fuel to Wilbur’s insanity, just because he fed off the madness coming from his brother.

Without thinking, Tommy hid his face in the crook of his brother’s neck, stilling when Wilbur froze. Tommy’s thoughts started rushing,  _had he… done something wrong?_   
  
_He couldn’t remember._

_ Was this one of the things he couldn’t do? _

_He didn’t remember, he didn’t…_ it had passed  too much time since Pogtopia and his memories of Wilbur’s rules blended together with those of Dream’s rules…

_ Had he… _

_ Please, don’t be mad, don’t be mad, don’t be mad… _

Tommy didn’t have the time to think to distance, if just infinitesimally, from Wilbur, that his older brother’s hand was in his hair, at first the boy almost flinched, tensing instead, half expecting Wilbur to grip his hair and pull  _and pull_ till it made his head hurt and made him want to cry.

But  Wilbur did no such thing, instead carding his fingers through his hair, burying his face in Tommy’s neck, in turn, like he needed this just as much as Tommy did.

_ Maybe, just maybe… Wilbur was better? _

_ Maybe this was his brother, before Pogtopia, during? Before L’Manberg? _

_ Just like Ghostbur but… alive. _

Tension started leaving Tommy’s body, as Wilbur muttered something, voice too muffled for Tommy to understand what, he was feeling the words more than hearing them really. But his brother continued caressing his hair warding off the newly rising sense of uneasiness that had decided to make itself known again in the teen’s mind.

For the first time since he had arrived in the tundra, following the now gone(probably reappeared somewhere else by now) ghost to Techno’s old cabin, Tommy let his guard fall.

_ He wasn’t in danger. _

_ How foolish of him to think that Wilbur would have hurt him. _

_ Why had he even… It didn’t matter. _

_ Wilbur was here. _

_ Here. _

_ And Tommy wasn’t giving him any reason to be anything but kind and sweet and caring. _

_ Tommy was being a good little brother, and Wilbur was rewarding him for it. _

_ It was fine. _

_ Fine. _

_. _

_. _

_ Then why was he feeling like he was about to cry? _

“Oh, Tommy.” Wilbur whispered clearer then before but not having moved yet from his position. “What have they done to you, uh?” he asked, and his voice was definitely closer now for Wilbur to not have moved. “All those bastards, those little, dirty traitors.” Wilbur’s voice was still low a soft whisper, his words though were like steel. The uneasiness deep in Tommy’s chest returned stronger then before as Wilbur’s hand stopped carding through his hair, instead just locking Tommy in place. “Fucking liars, all of them. I’ll kill them all. I promise. I’ll gut them, paint the ground red with their insides. I’ll do it all… _for you_.”

And Tommy froze, once again. Fear rushing through his body, growing, growing till becoming terror, as Wilbur’s voice got more and more sing-songy, those last words pronounced in a tone so light and sweet, like bitter poison hidden by the sweetness of honey. 

Tommy could imagine the manic smile on his brother’s face without any problems. That was the same tone he had when he said ‘ _Let’s blow that motherfucker to smithereens_ ’, and Tommy would never forget the deranged smile that curved his lips as he said those words.

“Don’t worry, Tommy.” Wilbur continued, unaware of how tense the boy had become at hearing his words. “I’ll take care of everything. All those fucking traitors will regret the day they decided to cross us, and that fucking, good for nothing, two-faced bastard of Tubbo” Wilbur growled, Tommy tensing even more, and he should stop Wilbur, he… he and Tubbo were friends, Tommy made to speak, and then stopped when a high-pitched, unhinged chuckle left Wilbur who then grabbed him by the shoulders and moved him away, to face him. 

  
And Tommy could only stare as his brother looked at him with wide eyes filled with so much madness that the teen wasn’t even sure that his brother was even there anymore, and that same unhinged smile with which Wilbur promised to destroy the country he had almost died to create, curving his lips.

“I’ll give his head to you. All nice and bloody. Would you like it, darling? If I gave you the traitor’s head?”

An image flashed in front of his eyes, for a moment, of Wilbur smiling just like he was smiling now, a bloodied sword in his right hand as he held Tubbo’s head with the other, blood covering his best friend’s face, whose last expression of fear would be forever etched like a macabre photo.

“No!” Tommy yelled, even louder than he had expected.

Wilbur frowned.

“No! You can’t… you… he… Tubbo is my friend, you can’t… that’s. No, Wilbur, no please… I… no I don’t want… I… _Wilbur, please_ ” Tommy all but pleaded, vision getting blurry with tears, stumbling over his words, mumbling them together in a scared mess.

For a moment, Wilbur appeared to be listening, for a moment Tommy thought that maybe his brother had really gotten… just that little bit better to be able to listen to reason, then his frown turned into a snarl, his fingers digging in Tommy’s scarred shoulders, making him yelp in pain.

“’ _Your friend_ ’ you say?” Wilbur drawled, then chucked bitterly. “What good friend you have there, Tommy. One that at the first occasion, exiles you. At the first occasion, turns his back to you to grovel at that green weirdo’s feet. Face it, Tommy, he isn’t your friend.”

Tommy opened his mouth to  rebut, to explain, to tell Wilbur that it wasn’t like that, that Tubbo had been forced to exile him, that it wasn’t his fault, but Wilbur cut him off.

“And if you still think he is… hell, _Toms_ , then you are even more of an idiot than I thought.” 

And Tommy wasn’t sure if it were Wilbur’s words, even if they were tamer than anything his brother would usually say when crossed, or if it was because he had used that… nickname, the last one he had connected to a memory that had yet to be tainted, but he found himself shutting his mouth close, eyes getting even more teary.

As his mind yelled:

_ Give him your armor. _

_ Give him your weapons. _

_ Give him everything. _

_ 'Put your stuff in the hole, Tommy.' _

_ In the hole. _

_ Let him blow it all up. _

_ You have to. _

_ You made him angry. _

_ Pay, you stupid child, pay.  _

Tommy heard Wilbur’s voice say something but it was too confused, mangling with Dream’s voice in his head, he only heard his name being called.

_ Faster. He had to be faster. _

_ Give him your armor. Your weapons. Give him everything. _

Tommy’s hands fumbled with the buckle of his gauntlets, his sight too blurry, his breaths too quick. _He couldn’t, he wasn’t able to…-_

Pain, stopped the panicked stream of his thoughts. Wilbur raised his hand again, probably to slap him again… but then he let it fall, Tommy almost wished he had. 

_Better to pay it all now than… sometime else, when he didn’t expect it._

“What the fuck are you doing?” Wilbur asked, he seemed angry and concerned and confused all at once, and even a hint disgusted. “Why the fuck are you taking off your clothes, Tommy?”  
  
_His clothes?_

_ No… it was his armor. His armor, he… why…  _

_ Had he done the wrong thing?  
  
Why was Wilbur even angrier? _

“I… I’m sorry. I… thought you… I…”

“You thought...what?! Speak, instead of blabbering like an idiot. What the fuck were you thinking?!”

Tommy opened his mouth to explain himself but he found that his voice wouldn't come out, stuck in his throat, his breaths coming out even quicker.

And Wilbur was yelling.

Yelling, and yelling, grabbing his chin to force him to look at him in the eyes the moment he tried to look downwards.

And then…

It stopped.

.

.

.

“Wilbur step away from Tommy.” Said a voice, calm but firm. Tommy couldn’t recognize it, not with his mind so scrambled.

Wilbur snarled, and growled out something, Tommy only recognized his name and the words: ‘ _He is mine. I know how to make him get better._ ’

“Step away, Wil.” said the voice once again, firmer, yet… warm. Tommy felt like he should know it.

“Or what? What will you do if I don’t? You’ll kill me again?” Wilbur snapped back, his hand letting go of Tommy’s chin as he turned slightly to the shadow behind them, deceptively small compared to both of them, yet infinitely more dangerous.

The shadow sighed. “You know I wouldn’t-”  
  
“I know nothing… I mean what else would you do, uh? I’m not gonna let you scold me like I’m some sort of toddler. So… please, fuck off and let me deal with  _my Tommy_ , would you kindly?” Wilbur said his voice filling with sarcasm near the end of the phrase.

_ The shadow… no, not a shadow, someone with… wings? Who… _

Tommy’s mind was filled with the memory of sharp, black feathers, and stone covered in gashes, as Philza sighed. 

His eyes glowed slightly more than usual and then Wilbur’s eyes rolled back and his brother fell down with a quiet ‘thud’.

“I hate doing that to you” Philza sighed, as he walked towards them, his gaze falling on Wilbur, concerned for a moment, before he realized that everything seemed to be okay… ish. 

Then his glowing eyes moved to Tommy and the teen froze as he remembered the words his father told him the last time he saw him: ‘ _ If I see you again, it will be to run my sword through your heart, traitor._’.

Philza’s eyes softened. “It’s alright, Tommy. You are safe… I know you don’t believe me, but you are.” he said

Tommy almost scoffed but stopped himself before doing so. His eyes falling onto Wilbur, who now as laying down sprawled like a puppet with cut strings. Worry filled Tommy’s heart despite the fear that Wilbur had caused him.

“What… what did you do to him?”

“He is fine, don’t worry. Just sleeping.” Philza answered, voice careful and soft, as his feathers that still looked softer than clouds.  Then he got nearer, not to get close to him but to lower himself and pick Wilbur in his arms, it was a bit of an awkward thing since Wilbur was taller than him but the celestial being made it work. Instinctively he half covered Wilbur with his wing, though it looked _wrong_ … like that wasn’t the _right_ wing, like it was too big, bent in the wrong way.

“Look away, mate.” Philza said, voice still gentle.

Tommy didn’t listen, because that was wrong, what he was seeing felt _wrong-right_ , Philza shouldn’t be able to cover Wilbur like that, it was… _impossible. It was…_

His head felt like it was on fire, the stress from what had happened just a moment before, mixed with the fear, even if Philza was calm… but that meant nothing, the Angel of Death was known for his slaying of his enemies with a calm smile on his lips as he enjoyed their screams of pain, sometimes even boosting them with his otherworldly powers, so that everyone could hear them.

Philza sighed, in a way so similar to how he had when Wilbur told him to fuck-off. His eyes glowed slightly more than usual once again, and before Tommy passed out, he could swear to have seen two more pairs of wings jutting out Philza’s back, one of the highest bent in an almost impossible way to cover Wilbur, and six more glowing orb-like eyes staring at him.

.

Phil sighed, and for a moment let go of his human-like form, to take Tommy in his arms too. He knew he shouldn’t, that whatever would have even seen a glimpse of him right now would go insane. But for some reason even if his nature was screaming at him for disregarding the Gods’ rules, Phil felt like he could care less if something or someone went mad because of him.

_ He had…_, he sighed once more, though a little slightly sad and yet glad smile bent his lips,  _ he had  _ two sons _ to take care of. _

__

__

_ He could care less for the rest of creation.  _

__

__

And if the Angel had been more attentive, if he hadn’t been so focused on his sons, now sleeping in his arms, one completely insane turned into a monster wearing human skin and the other broken up in pieces that would never really fit together again, if he hadn’t been, he’d have noticed the apex of his halo cracking, turning the glowing circle of light into two curved horns glowing of netheric like light.

__

__

There is a reason why Angels shouldn’t create… for they love so much that if their love stops encompassing the entire reality, it twists and turns into something dangerous and foul.

__

__

After all, Wilbur’s madness hadn’t come from nothing and neither had Tommy’s obsession with saving the country he and his brother had molded and made from nothing.

__

__

When Angels Fall, they don’t Fall for power, nor want of a dominion, _they Fall for love_.  
  
  


__

* * *

__

__

In a room in an abandoned stronghold, the immortal warrior known as the Blood God, sharpened his Netherite ax, a smile curving his lips and eyes glowing fresh-spilled blood red.

__

The voices in his head chanting happily, hungry for bloodshed and eager to have him gorge himself with the madness spilling from a family he very well knew.

__

__

A God was about to lose his head, and heart… well, his everything really.

__

__

The Blood God chuckled under his breath.

__

__

As the voices chanted: ‘ _Blood_! Blood! **Hail the Blood God, Hail the Mad King**. _We want blood_ , we want de _at_ **h**! The Mad King will serve us the Lime God’s Blood. _We want his head_ , we want his skull. Down _with his_ **Mask**!’

__

__

Still chuckling, Technoblade wondered if a God’s teeth would break as easily with a swing of his pick as the Butcher’s did.

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I ever mentioned that this story is pretty dark? 'Cause it is and from now on it's gonna get worse till the end(Well at least a green boy, we all know, is gonna pay). Though there will be fluff don't worry...
> 
> On another note, fuck what even was Tommy's stream yesterday? 'Cause I tell ya guys, it may have been only thirty minutes long but what didn't happen in those thirty minutes? /disbelief  
> No, really, I've yet to accept that Tommy lost his last canon life... Like poor kid, beaten to death by his abuser... what a _bitter end_. My heart is broken and bleeding I tell you


	7. We’ll fit back together as we once did

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil has set his mind. He’ll help his sons get better, no matter how difficult it will be.  
> After all they are the only important thing he has.

> “ _As long as he deceived himself about the truth, he could blame fortune and have confidence in the future. Now the clouds of madness were closing round his mind.  
>  Hermann Bahr”_

As the Angel that he was, Phil was used to deal in extremes.

If something followed the rules that the Gods had given to creation than it was good, if it didn’t than it had to be smitten out of creation, in a less broader sense, if something or someone did something that Phil found wrong then that being was in the wrong and Phil would have acted as such.

Which was why, when he learned of the fact that Tommy had betrayed, turned his back on Technoblade, after everything that the immortal, usually apathetic, warrior had done for him, he had decided to renounce his son.

He couldn’t share a bond with a betrayer, with a liar, a traitor, because if he did, that would have put him in the wrong in his point of view.

  
In his mind that reasoning was right and it made sense, as such he  hadn’t felt guilty even when his own son, his last surviving son, had looked at him with tears in his eyes, and fear and a sense of betrayal burning so bright in his fractured soul that for a moment Phil had thought that he had Wilbur in front of him instead of Tommy. For his eldest son’s soul burned with betrayal too, so bright that it had hidden the abyss and the beast inside of it.

He hadn’t felt guilty as he turned his sword, the same diamond bladed sword with which he had taken his eldest son’s life, towards him, wings spread wide and feathers obsidian-sharp. And neither he had felt guilty when he left his last surviving son crying on the edges of the crater that once was his sons’ creation, the Blood God by his side, with a sated smile on his lips and eyes glistering like the vast expanses of lava of the Nether that had made him more than human, and a False God, with a white smiling mask that hid his features and acid green forever dripping from his chin, like never ending tears, trailing behind them.

But all of that had changed, had changed the exact moment when, as he was leaving the upper floor of the cottage, he had heard Wilbur yell at someone to ‘ _stop it, stop it. Just fucking breathe!_ ’, and, following the yell ( _in part worried that Wilbur was just hallucinating, it, sadly, wouldn’t be new_ ), had seen his eldest son yelling at his younger brother, any trace of any righteous fury he could muster drowning under the shock that had left him speechless for a few instants.

For Tommy was irradiating fear, no, not fear, bone-deep terror, eyes wide fixed in his older brother’s even though he wasn’t seeing him, not with how far and glazed over his gaze was.

All the while Wilbur had kept yelling at him to snap out of it, obtaining the opposite effect instead.

It was then that, just as abruptly as he had decided to renounce him the first time, when he prepared for war with the Blood God and the False God, Phil had decided that Tommy was just as innocent as Wilbur was, in his eyes.  
  
_Their wrongdoings_ _a result of their damaged souls._

_And really how could he stay angry with Tommy if he was as damaged and twisted as Wilbur was?_

_All that his youngest son needed was his affection and care just like Wilbur._

And would give them that affection, and the care that he never gave before, not realizing that he had to treat them differently from his celestial brothers.

_Uh, maybe that was the reason why he and Technoblade got along so wel_ l, the Blood God had something that reminded him of his celestial brothers, being a soldier through-and-through, though differently from the Angels, Technoblade fought for his own enjoyment instead of because of some higher order.

He’ll miss the hunts he and Technoblade went on together, but alas his sons needed him, and he would give them all the attention they needed, for they were the only really important thing he had.

Entering the cottage, once again, with his sons in his arms, Phil closed the door with a flick of his wing. _And didn’t it feel good to let his True Form show instead of locking it in that constricting human appearance?_

He went upstairs, bringing Wilbur in what had become his room in these last days, taking off his boots before laying him down in the bed and covering him with the blankets, taking care of adding one more since he had been out in the cold for a while, and because he knew that his son always felt cold, no matter how much he denied it,( _a part of Phil couldn’t stop but think that maybe, when he left them the first time to go out and adventure in the wilderness, he had inadvertently taken something of Wilbur’s with him_ ).

But not more than one since he knew that if Wilbur felt too weighted down, he’d wake up in a panic, convinced that someone was holding him down. Phil had learned that the hard way, during the first days in which his son had returned into his care, and would never forget how wild and violent Wilbur could become when he was trapped in the cruel imaginings of his own mind.

As he made to leave the room, he checked to have left the curtains open, he had. The light of the rising full moon filtering inside from the frosted over glass, Phil thought that it was too much light for a human to sleep comfortably, but alas Wilbur needed light to remind himself that he wasn’t back in that ravine that had been his base for a year as he prepared the revolution against the ram-horned man that had stolen his country from him.

His feathers turned almost sharp as he thought of that, that man, Schlatt, that had stole his sons’ country and had had the audacity to exile them from it. That Schlatt was lucky that the Gods had given him a merciful death, because if he still drew breath, Phil would have ripped his heart out of his chest and mounted his horns as a trophy in his house. Or maybe he would have gifted them to Wilbur.

_Surely his son would have liked that gift._

_He would have._ Phil remembered that when Wilbur was younger, when he had first started killing the monsters that came out at night, he had the habit of taking things as spoils from the monsters he had killed,  creepers’ hide and skeletons’ skulls being his favorites, though Phil never knew what he did with them.

Phil quietly closed the door behind him and brought Tommy, the boy still sleeping thanks to his little trick with his Grace, to the room that had been his when Techno still lived in the cottage.  
His room was just as Phil had left it, mostly cluttered with things he found in his exploring of the lands of the kingdom, none of them though could be used as a weapon not even if one was trying hard enough, besides some jars that he’d have to remember to take with him when he left.

Readying Tommy for bed was way more complicated than it had been for Wilbur, as the kid wore almost a complete armor, missing only the upper arm and leg pieces, and so Phil had to take care of taking off the rest. The heavy  Netherite armor had mostly lost it’s clean shine, and was scratched on some points, nothing, thought, that a good polish wouldn’t take care  of. 

Maybe Phil could take care of that when he waited for them to wake up, as he really didn’t need to sleep and didn’t feel like to indulge in that pass-time when he was worried for how his sons would react when they’d wake up.

Taken off the armor, he laid Tommy to bed, covering him too with the soft wool blankets. He swooped up the armor pieces, once again grateful that his True Form had more than just two arms, so he didn’t have to balance the pieces risking them to fall on the floor and making too much sound.

As he made to leave the room he stopped, uncertain if the curtain thing was the same for Tommy as it was for Wilbur, preferring to err on the side of caution than having Tommy wake up with a panic attack, he left them open and then left the room, closing the door as he had done before.

And then he got downstairs, where he stored his maintenance kit for his own armor – consisting in: some wool and linen rags, a mildly abrasive paste made out of finely ground Nether quartz and protective oil to prevent rust(though Netherite didn’t rust all that easily)–, took it from the chest were he had  placed it, and returning to his human form, to avoid any eventual risks, no matter how little, that he didn’t notice his sons wake up. He started with the repetitive, menial task of polishing armor back to shine.

.

.

He was polishing the inside of the breastplate(after having completed the polishing of the external part of all the other pieces) when he heard some rather panicked rustling from upstairs.  
Phil put the breastplate and wool rag aside, and went up to check.

Wilbur was still sleeping, his soft, calm breathing clearly audible, for him.  
  
So…

Phil went to check up on Tommy and surely enough the boy was wide awake, and working himself up to a panic, in his trying to keep the sound of his breathing quiet.

“Tommy,” he started, keeping his voice low enough to not disturb Wilbur’s sleep( _honestly Wilbur must have inherited some of his enhanced senses, because he could hear even the faintest of sounds when he wanted to._ ), but not only that also calm and as comforting as he could. “It’s me, Phil. Can I enter?” he asked, hating the fact that even he himself couldn’t call himself father for his sons.

At least he had realized his mistakes before it was too late to repair them… At least now both of his sons were alive.

Tommy didn’t answer, instead his breathing had stuttered, and a little stifled sound muffled by the door had been the only indication that he had even heard the question.

“You are safe, Tommy, I promise.” the Fallen Angel said, involuntarily bowing his head in a form of apology, even though Tommy couldn’t see him, as he continued: “I wont hurt you, Tommy. And you know I can’t lie.” 

Tommy didn’t  acknowledge to have heard him, but Phil heard him walking closer to the closed door.  
  
“Where is my armor?” the teen whispered, voice almost too low even for him to hear.  
  
“Downstairs. I was polishing it…” Phil paused, voice lowering to a silence as he thought carefully if what he was about to say would be  too much or if Tommy would have thought him to be too pushy. “You can come downstairs and finish polishing it yourself… or… I could bring you your armor, and you can finish it in here.”

The handle of the door turned, Phil took a step back as the door opened slightly. “Downstairs. I’ll… finish it up downstairs.” the boy whispered, not daring to look up more than the friendship emerald that hang from his neck. 

Once again Phil wanted to be able to go back in time to punch his past self in the face for having broken so utterly any remaining trace of trust that his youngest son had in him.

Phil nodded at the teen’s words, and took another step back so that Tommy had all the space between them that he wanted. Carefully, almost hesitantly Tommy left the room, blond hair all messy and clothes ruffled that made him look actually like the teenager he was supposed to be, but the scars on his forearms, from badly parried swings and too close for comfort arrow shots, and the look in his eyes quickly canceled any illusion.

And Phil wondered if part of this was his fault. 

If Wilbur hadn’t found anything wrong in making his little brother a soldier, so young, because that’s all he had been treated as from him.

Tommy looked up at him, still avoiding to look anywhere near his eyes or wings, waiting. It was then that Phil realized that his son was waiting for him to lead, and that he wouldn’t turn his back on him, as if worried that Phil would have stabbed him in the back even though the Fallen Angel was clearly completely unarmed. 

With a slight nod, Phil started walking, Tommy followed suit.

.

.

Phil had to let Tommy finish polishing his armor on the kitchenette table, as the boy didn’t want to have his back turned on him even when he was focusing on cleaning his armor, shooting him glances from time to time. 

Remaining completely silent all the while. It was strange, even soon after his Exile, when Tommy had joined Technoblade, he had been rather talkative and chatty, always ready to spit some brash remarks, or make a joke out of anything.

But…  _not now_. He was quiet and serious, and over everything else wary and scared, even if he hid the last emotion well, to well for Phil’s liking.  _Why did his son know so well how to hide when he was afraid?_

And had…  _losing New L’Manberg_ meant so much for him?  _This much to have turned_ _a_ _usually almost too talkative kid into this silent, world-wary soldier with a child’s body?_

“Where is Wilbur?” Tommy asked suddenly, only barely raising his eyes from the piece he was polishing.

Even though Phil found strange that his son would have immediately asked for Wilbur, after the scene he had interrupted a few hours before, he jumped  on the possibility to actually talk with Tommy. “He is upstairs, sleeping…. I can go and call him, if you want?”

Tommy stiffened at the suggestion, his movements going to a halt, so quick that it had seemed like the simple idea had petrified him. “No.” he answered immediately, voice feeble as he clearly pushed it through his shock. “There is no need to, really.” he added just as quickly, before muttering something under his breath, as he got back to polishing the piece of armor, something that if Phil had been simply human couldn’t have heard but luckily for him he wasn’t so he didn’t even had to strain his hearing to hear the: ‘ _He sleeps_ _too_ _little. Don’t disturb him when he does. It hurts if he gets up on the wrong side._ ’ repeated softly under his breath like a half-prayer, or the repeated teachings from a monk, only that none of that was holy.

Even though he wanted to, Phil didn’t comment on what his youngest had just muttered, of the rules that he was involuntarily listing in a mutter, as if now that he had started he couldn’t stop until he had said all of them, with an obsessiveness that wasn’t all that unlike Wilbur’s own with him.

In these last days alone with Wilbur, Phil had, despite himself, grown used to soft mutterings, of things or concepts or words repeated over and over again with one-minded focus and obsession dripping from every single letter pronounced, like blood dripping from a sword. Or dark blood dripping down Wilbur’s fingers, coating his hands – _hands that should have known only the light weight of a metal tipped quill and of a shiny guitar, but now where outright lethal with or without a weapon_ – as he stared at them and Phil stared at him,  a bloodied lump, with small fragile bones jutting out torn flesh and feathers all over, on the window sill, all that remained of a poor bird whose only crime had been to perch in front of Wilbur’s window while he was feeling particularly angered and homicidal. 

His son had been quiet and, almost, content for the rest of the day after that, making him think that maybe his theory that bloodshed could have quelled his insanity for a short while, just like it did with Technoblade, must have been close to truth.

  
And at the same time forcing him to stomp out the fledgling thought of going out to find things that his son could kill, to keep him calm and near-sane as he could be.

But that had been a _wrong thought_ , as he couldn’t invalidate the meaning of the life of other beings just because… _it would have maybe helped his son._

Phil returned to the present, Tommy was focusing wholly on finishing polishing the last of the armor pieces the muttering had stopped, and, the Fallen Angel looked out of a window, even though it was still quite early, the sun hadn’t even started raising yet, but the moon was disappearing from the horizon, he probably should start preparing something for his sons. 

Wilbur would probably be up soon, and Phil knew that if he didn’t find anything he’d completely forget to eat, which was something that Phil didn’t want to happen.

As soon as he started to stand up, with a soft rustle of feathers, Tommy tensed and though he didn’t stop moving as much as he had when Phil had mentioned waking up Wilbur, he clearly was giving more of his attention to Phil’s movements than what he was doing. 

“I’m just going to prepare breakfast.” Phil said not unkindly, though he had to recognize that his phrasing did sound a bit snappish, but in his defense he had passed too much time with only a sharp, silver tongued Wilbur so he did involuntarily picked up somethings from his eldest son’s way of speaking.

Tommy didn’t appear more or less scared, but the tension in his shoulder had lessened a bit so Phil counted it as a victory.

As he left the kitchenette table to go to the actual kitchenette. “Do you have any preferences, Tommy?”  
  
The teen didn’t answer, giving only what seemed a slight shrug, though it was so light of a movement that Phil almost thought he had imagined it. Tommy’s gaze followed him, and Phil pretended to not notice it as he turned his back to his youngest son. Hoping that Tommy would see it as a show of trust as he meant it to be and not as a sort of  show that he thought Tommy was too weak or too much of a coward to attack him.

Stifling a sigh, Phil started watching through the cabinets and cold storage, one of the few advantages of living in the tundra was the almost never ending supply of clean fresh snow and ice to keep meat and other perishable food fresh, so that he could get some ideas on what to prepare.

Hopefully Tommy wouldn’t try to run away right now, he doubted it, seeing that knowing his younger son and he knew him (though not as well as he knew Wilbur), he was probably planning on biding his time, since he knew that he couldn’t rush through the tundra fast enough to lose him.

.

Soon enough as Phil was starting to serve breakfast, which consisted in eggs and pork strips ( _he thought he had way more variety of food at hand… but evidently he hadn’t and since he didn’t exactly need to eat he hadn’t restocked_ ), and Tommy finished suiting up in his, now, shiny Netherite armor, despite Phil trying to convince him that he was safe and that he didn’t need to suit up at home. Soon enough the soft, almost rhythmic, like a march –one can take the army away from a General, but not the army out of the General–, sound of steps filled the relative silence. 

Wilbur entered the living space, for a moment looking distraught until his eyes fell on Tommy. As the boy tensed, joy unadulterated and possessive filled the man’s eyes.

“You are here.” Wilbur whispered, like he couldn’t believe his own eyes, voice slightly rough sounding from sleep. “You are really here.” 

In a way that appeared, to the Angel at least, too sudden and artificial, all tension left Tommy’s shoulders,  a little, too soft smile bending his lips. 

And there was something much too desperate and resigned in the soft sound of Tommy’s voice as he said: “Yeah, I’m here, big man.” 

Tommy slightly, almost unnoticeable, opened his arms and Wilbur smiling too wide, _too wrong_ , like he had forgot how to smile normally, flung himself into his little brother’s arms. Tommy let out a little ‘oomph’ at the sudden impact but didn’t move much, besides moving his arms to encircle his older brother.

Phil was left dumbfounded by the sudden change in Tommy’s demeanor,  _what had changed in a few hours?_ Tommy had seemed so terrified by Wilbur, to the point that even mentioning him had made the kid scared….  _And now he was hugging him?_

_ Smiling at him? _

“I missed you so much, Toms! I don’t even have the words to describe how much I missed you.” Wilbur said, his words almost in a rush one following the other, something manic hiding in his eyes.

“I missed you too, Wilby.”  


Wilbur’s smile widened, looking even more unsettling but Tommy didn’t seem to mind, as he let his older brother hug him as tight as he wanted. After a few moments Wilbur let Tommy go, and went to ruffle his hair, though his hand lingered a bit too much.

"I wont let anyone divide us ever again.” Wilbur said to Tommy, his eyes for him and him only, as if the man had even forgot that Phil was there.

Tommy nodded. And then he and Wilbur finally acknowledged his presence, and when Tommy turned, Phil could get a good view of his expression, and while the boy was smiling, that smile was too soft, too sweet, too something that wasn’t Tommy, and his eyes were empty, resigned.

_ Was this all a mask for Wilbur?  
To stay on his good side? _

For a moment, Phil wondered if he had done the wrong thing, but as he sat on the stool, with his family together for the first time in years, the Fallen Angel felt the thought leave his mind.

_ How could this be wrong, if it made him so happy? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly Phil is in so much denial right now, that the subtitle for this chapther could be: 'Or Phil is in denial so much so that he doesn't realize that he is doing more harm than good'.


	8. Cozy Nights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To celebrate Tommy’s return to him, Wilbur decides that the two of them will have one of their ‘Cozy Nights’. 
> 
> Tommy is scared. Surely Phil wouldn’t leave them alone, right? Even if the Angel hated him surely he wasn’t cruel enough to leave him alone with Wilbur… right?

> “ _An end in terror is preferable to terror without end.  
>  Sophie Scholl”_

It took Tommy everything he had to not choke on the piece of pork strip he was eating, when Wilbur stated his proposal, and it took him another ounce of the already depleting self-restraint he had to not stare at his brother with wide eyes.

But what was worse, was that Phil, the  Angel ( _ of who Tommy had yet to get a good read to, like why was he being so ‘caring’ when he had never been? Did he want something from him? From them? _ ) appeared to be seriously thinking about it. 

And while yeah, Tommy knew how much the being hated him,  _ of course he knew_, he’d never forget the words that had been spat against him, the poisonous glint in his glowing eyes, the way he looked like he was ready to split the earth open, even more than the explosive and Withers and Dream( _ of course Dream was there… why would he ever think that his father wouldn’t join Dream’s side? When even Wilbur had done it? Why was his family so drawn to the bastard?… a little voice in his head whispered that maybe if he was just a bit more like them… more drawn to Dream instead of wanting to oppose him, maybe things wouldn’t have turned as they had during his Exile _ ) his acid green tears corroding the very essence of what they came in contact with, weaponized, turning dirt and stone and whatever else into a greenish mushy slush, that was dangerous even when it had stopped glowing, had done. 

Philza had looked ready to split the earth down to the core and then deeper to throw him in the Nether, having him drown in the soulsand desert, with his own hands.

But really if he hated him so much, he’d surely prefer to just cut him down himself…  _ why put up all this sick, twisted charade of a perfect family? _ A perfect family that, Tommy smoothed out the bitter smile that had curved his lips before Wilbur took notice of it, _ a perfect family that had never existed in the first place. _

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Philza had always been too occupied with adventuring, living in the wilderness, hunt and fight and kill with his God friend Technoblade, the boar-masked bitch Tommy hated with a passion especially after his numerous betrayals, though  those really weren’t the real reason he hated him so much, what made him hate the Blood God, the one he had once almost considered an older brother-figure of some sort, was how eagerly he had helped Wilbur’s descent in madness. Whispering of blood and vengeance in his ear, till that was all that Wilbur could think of, doing all of this, destroying the person Tommy cared the most about in the entire world, just so he could get stronger, feeding off his madness like a starved beast feasted on a carcass. Tommy hated Technoblade, but returning to the point,  Philza wasn’t all that better in his eyes.

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_ Never present _. And the only times he had been Tommy could count them on the fingers of one hand, and neither of them had been really pleasant, either for him or for Wilbur or for both of them.

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And now Philza was here, putting up this charade that couldn’t work because there was nothing to base it on.

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Wilbur had took care of Tommy as he grew, Wilbur had been there for all of his goals growing up. He had watched him as he took his first step, he  cheered for him as he spoke his first word, Wilbur taught him how to play a guitar and the piano, how to write and read, Wilbur had taught him that the world was beautiful and that it waited for him to take it.

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Wilbur had been the one singing for him when Tommy couldn’t sleep, the one taking care of him when he was sick, Wilbur had been the one hugging Tommy till he fell asleep when storms still scared him.

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Philza had just taught him how to brandish a sword and how to kill efficiently. And Wilbur had been the one who had hugged him and whispered sweet words to him when he was crying after his first kill, Wilbur had helped him wash away the blood from his hands and clothes, all the while humming that song that Tommy loved to put him at ease.

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Honestly, Wilbur had been…  _ practically everything for Tommy_, which was why it hurt him so much to have to be so afraid of him. Why it was so easy to just pretend to forget and smile, and hug Wilbur and talk to him, laugh with him… pretend that all was normal, and had never changed between them.

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Pretend that Wilbur had done none of what…  _ he had actually done _ in Pogtopia. Pretend that Wilbur hadn’t yell at him one day out of the blue, screeching at him how everything going wrong in his life had been his fault, pretend that his dear brother hadn’t been the one who had broken his wrist and then forbade him from using potions to have it heal( _ it had messed up his writing, Tommy hated it. He had passed so much time to imitate Wilbur’s beautiful, curly handwriting and now all of that was useless since he couldn’t keep a quill steady enough to do anything more than a barely legible scratch _ ). Pretend that Wilbur hadn’t been the one to lock him in a small dark room knowing of his fears, and left him there for hours on end every time he displeased him just a bit too much. Pretend that Wilbur, his dear brother, the one that had always calmed him down when he had panic attacks with sweet words and warm hugs, or just singing to him till he felt better, wasn’t the one that had suddenly decided that the best way to calm him down was to yell at him till he was afraid to even draw breath and then… only then switched up to sweet words, and promises of ‘ _ I’ll keep you safe. I’m here, Tommy.’ _ …  _ and wasn’t that the problem? _

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_ That he was here? _

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_ Oh… he was such a terrible brother. He should be grateful, grateful, grateful…  _

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_ Stupid child, too selfish, too- _

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“So… what do you say, Toms?” Wilbur’s voice cut through his thoughts like a blade sliced the flesh in front of it. 

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_ What…? _ It took Tommy’s brain a second to get what Wilbur was asking, and why.  _ And really his brother was so considerate to ask him if he wanted it too _ ( _ no matter that Wilbur had already decided and his thoughts weren’t likely to change even if Tommy disagreed _ ).

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Tommy nodded, a bit to  emphatically, too childishly for his own taste but this was for Wilbur not for him, and Wilbur was smiling and chuckling sweetly, so he was doing the right thing really. “I’d love to. We haven’t had a cozy night in years.” 

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Wilbur scoffed, for a moment mostly benignly, then his gaze darkened, his expression turning into a sneer. “Figure that that stupid washed out copy didn’t even know how to treat you right.” 

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Tommy bit his tongue to stop the retort of ‘ _ Ghostbur isn’t stupid _ ’ and ‘ _ If I could, I’d choose him over you any time of the week _ ’, he almost flinched at his own thoughts.

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_ Wilbur wasn’t that bad. _

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And yet the thought of passing the entire night alone with him made his lungs constrict and his heart twitch painfully.

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“ You are doing the  _ thing _ , Tommy.” Wilbur said, tearing him away from his thoughts once again, voice deceptively calm but Tommy could see in his eyes that he was everything but. At the same time  Philza said: “Everything is alright, Tommy. You are safe.” voice calm and comforting, and over all of that  _ genuine _ where Wilbur’s calm was a warning.

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Wilbur looked at Philza and rolled his eyes, clearly stopping himself from scoffing at the reassurance, before his gaze returned to Tommy,  waiting for him to explain why he had started ‘doing the thing’ with his breath that he did every time he felt panic start to rush through his body.

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Suddenly Tommy didn’t feel as hungry as he did before, even though the Angel’s cooking was, well, heavenly and Tommy hadn’t had anything this good in…  _ a while _ . He cut one of the remaining pork strips in half, as he raced through the options he could use as an  explanation that wouldn’t have made Wilbur angry, all the while a part of him was surprised Philza even gave him a knife.

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He could use it as a weapon, he could threaten them, force them to let him go. He had an armor and a potential weapon, they were unarmed, no, that wasn’t right, Philza was a weapon all by himself, and Wilbur had a knife too, and he wasn’t all that sure that he wouldn’t have stuck it in his hand if he tried something. 

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Not that he thought that Wilbur would harm him without a reason, obviously, but the chance… well, _the chance was there_.

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Finally an idea came to his mind, and he smiled sweetly at Wilbur, even though the smile felt fake and plastic on his face. “I’m just very  excited for tonight, Wilby.” he said, the lie feeling like acid poison on his tongue, like a flying drop of Dream’s tears falling on his tongue and almost burning his flesh through and through.

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Wilbur looked at him for a moment more, appearing almost as if he wasn’t believing his words, Tommy forced himself to continue smiling in spite of the ever growing panic, then Wilbur smiled and ruffled his hair, before ‘ _ aw _ ’ing at him in a way that felt almost mocking, with the too wide smile on his face, but his madness-glazed eyes were soft so Tommy took comfort in that. “ You called me ‘Wilby’, Tommy” he said, voice a little too high in tone but filled with enough brotherly love, that Tommy felt his fake smile soften into a true one.

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Even as he bit his tongue to not retort anything. 

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Wilbur kept smiling and, as he noticed by looking with the corner of his eye, Philza was smiling too, as if he was just a father looking at his children being all cute and stuff.

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Tommy just wanted to drop the charade and shout at him, at Wilbur, but _ he didn’t _ . 

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He had more chances of getting out of here, and not getting too hurt, if he just…  _ played along _ . Even if it made his heart twist painfully in his chest, and made him want to cry, and yell for Wilbur, the old Wilbur the one before L’Manberg was even an idea in the back of his mind, to come and save him.

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“I wish you’d do that more often, you know? I love when you call me ‘Wilby’” Wilbur said, voice soft and hiding still the warmth of a smile, even though there was also a demand of ‘call me that more, Tommy’ hidden in the subtext of what he had just said.

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“I know, but I’d like to keep it for special occasions…” Tommy shut his mouth the exact moment he realized that he had voiced his thought,  _ of course it was already too late so he had fucked up _ , now Wilbur would get angry, and their possibly, even, relaxing Cozy Night would turn into an absolute hell of Wilbur whispering horrible,  _ horrible things _ into his ear as he kept him trapped against his chest, with what should have been  a hug but was more like the constricting grip of a snake’s coils. Keeping that up until Tommy fell into an uneasy sleep out of prolonged terror-caused exhaustion, and then keep going until his dreams turned into twisted nightmares, that would have him squirm and shiver in Wilbur’s arms for the entirety of the night.

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But Wilbur’s expression didn’t turn into a grimace, and neither a snarl, instead his smile, still a bit too wide, got.. more genuine. “I guess it makes it more special too.” 

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Tommy took in a breath in relief, he hadn’t even notice that he had practically stopped breathing, so scared he was of his possible reaction. But nothing had happened and that was good.

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Maybe this Cozy Night of theirs would be more similar to the original ones, than those in Pogtopia, maybe cometh night he’d really be able to relax and spend some time with his brother without being terrified of fucking up everything.

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Or maybe it wouldn’t…  _ but well, Tommy could hope _ . After all that was the only thing he had in the situation he found himself in.

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After breakfast, Philza disappeared in the basement, to ‘sort somethings out’ apparently, Wilbur had rolled his eyes at that. 

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“He always busies himself with something to do, either upstairs or downstairs.” Wilbur told him after noticing his confused look. “My guess is that he is getting a bad case of cabin fever, after all it isn’t like him to stay for so long in one place.” and while there was a smile on his lips, his tone was bitter enough that Tommy could only agree with the sentiment.

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“And… what should we do?” Tommy asked, deciding that that was a safe topic.

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Wilbur shrugged as he stood up. “Besides cleaning up? I don’t know. I’ve passed this last…  _ what? _ Week? Planning a way to find you, but you are here, so that’s useless.” he answered.

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Tommy took the  hint and stood up too, starting to  collect the dishes, without even needing Wilbur to tell him too, his older brother smiled at him and just turned to the kitchenette, Tommy following suit.

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It was… kinda  _ surreal _ being so close to Wilbur, almost shoulder to shoulder, doing something as normal as washing the dishes instead of standing there terrified as his brother put together more and  more dynamite sticks. Wilbur had even started humming something under his breath, just like he did in the old times before L’Manberg, before they came into Dream’s kingdom, before all. When it was just he and Wilbur, living in Philza’s mansion, it never really felt like a home, too big for just the two of them and mostly filled with trinkets and things their father found in his adventures.  
But it had a music room, ( _ despite Philza always looking almost disappointed those rare times he watched Wilbur play  _ _ his guitar _ ) and that was enough for both of them to feel almost at home.

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Wilbur finished up with the dishes, and Tommy finished drying them. Breathing easy, for the first time in a long time, even if he was so close to Wilbur to be able to smell the  scent of coal and gunpowder that seemed to have become an  intrinsic part of him, in his brother’s presence. 

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What had happened hours ago, pushed in the farthest part of his mind as he let himself be lulled by the illusion that Wilbur would remain like this till their night and after.

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After all that had been one of the things Tommy had been good in Pogtopia, deceiving himself with the hope that that was just a one time thing, that Wilbur would return the brother he once,  _ no, still _ loved.

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Wilbur turned towards him, as he dried his hands on a kitchen towel, a slight smirk on his face, but it was filled with too much mirth and harmless mischief to put Tommy on edge. “I have an idea of what we could do to pass time…” 

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Turned out that Tommy didn’t like Wilbur’s idea to pass time, and that while it was relatively harmless, at least it was completely harmless physically speaking. Mentally, one the other hand… _Yeah, no_.

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It wasn’t all that surprising in hindsight that Wilbur had become so bloodthirsty if his way to pass time when he didn’t know what to do, was to write a list of names and then read one of them out loud and say the first thing that came into his mind regarding what he could do to them, to make them regret ever betraying him.

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Tommy had exhaled a sigh of relief when he noticed that he wasn’t on the list Wilbur had written, but his relief had faded shortly after when he realized that Tubbo’s name was there.

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“Toms, Big T,  _ Tommy _ , we can’t play the game if you refuse saying anything.” Wilbur rehiterated, a slight frustration in his tone, and Tommy really couldn’t see how Wilbur would see this as a game.

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_ It wasn’t. _

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It was something sick and wrong and… the worst part was that there was a part of him, that spoke like Dream, his cadence and falsely friendly tone, but with Wilbur’s voice, that told him: ‘ _ Do it. It’d be fun. You aren’t hurting anyone, just give in. It will do you good to let your thoughts out. _ ’  and Tommy pointedly ignored that voice.

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“Fine.” Wilbur sighed. And Tommy almost perked up at having won an argument without Wilbur screaming at him, then a lazy, wide smile curved his brother’s lips. “Since you wont speak it’s my turn.”

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And if Tommy wasn’t so scared to be screamed at, possibly slapped, and if the words that started pouring out of his brother’s mouth hadn’t been that bone-chilling terrifying, maybe he’d have shouted at Wilbur to ‘ _ shut up! Shut up! Shut up!’ _ but he couldn’t even find his voice, so he remained there, still as a statue, listening as his brother, half laying on the couch, half sitting, like he would have been if he was playing his guitar and singing, listed names and droned on and on about all the terrifying things he’d do to them.

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And the worst part was that that horrible part of him that Tommy wanted to stomp out, listened intently, and said: ‘ _You have to admit though,_ _he is_ right. _All of them deserve this and more._ ’

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* * *

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Hidden from view, outside of the cabin that was once his, the Blood God watched. It wasn’t time for him to get there, but the madness coming off of the musician-turned-terrorist was too much of a treat for him to resist long before yielding to get at least a little taste of it.

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Even though from the distance he was, it wasn’t all that satisfying of a taste. But it made the voices calm down a bit, made them go quieter, their yells and shouts turning into mellowed asks. The voices really loved Wilbur’s madness, as much as they loved-hated, appreciated-despised the man himself, they wanted, both, to give the Mad King a crown, and for him to drive him so insane that all of his brilliance and cunning would crumble into senseless madness.

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If anything Technoblade despised the second option, for a couple of reasons: One, Phil, the Angel of Death, would have hated him if he destroyed his son like that, and Technoblade didn’t want to lose his oldest friend and two, it would have been a waste to destroy that sharp mind, that was always, at least, four-five steps ahead of everyone he planned against, and that loved twisting people with his sharp, silver tongue, as much as Technoblade loved to spill blood.

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‘ _ The Mad Prince? _ Oh.  **Expected** .  _ What would we expect other than this _ ? The Mad King called them two-halves once. **As said expected.** ’

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The voices started discussing between them, which was a rare sight really, they mostly just talked to him, almost never among themselves. 

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“Uh?” Technoblade muttered.

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‘ _ Look _ at **them** ’ said the voices in a chorus. Technoblade sighed, as his head started to hurt slightly at the mixed voice he had heard, but returned watching the cabin nonetheless. 

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Wilbur was still talking, quite excitedly if the wild movements of his hands were anything to go by, bloodlust painting the madness coming from him with a wonderful new shade that made it even more tempting, but there was something else under the strong waves of madness coming from the man, a weaker, scared, still too contained undertone, someone else… though it tasted quite similar to Wilbur’s own mark of madness, more acid though. Stained with  _ something _ … 

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‘ **Stupid Lime God**. _His sludge is tainting some perfectly good madness_. Why can’t we just kill him now? _The Mad King has_ **to give us his head**. True.” the voices bemoaned, less like otherworldly beings Technoblade didn’t know the exact origin of, and more like disappointed kids that had dropped their snow-cone. 

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Technoblade almost smiled, then winced when the voices retaliated by screaming in his head.  _ Okay, he deserved that _ . 

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Returning to the subject at hand, _the Mad Prince, uh? Seemed like things were about to get more interesting._

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And that all of Phil’s sons were condemned to the same destiny, well… _There was a reason Angels shouldn’t create after all._

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Especially not the Angel of Death himself, he had been meant to reap life away, not to make it anew.

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‘He is not there yet.  _ With the Mad King by his side, constantly? We give him a week _ . One and a half. Deal?  _ Deal _ .  **Well, at least they’ll be happy** . Insanity makes humans happier.  **Especially when it’s shared.** ’

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* * *

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The rest of the day had passed surprisingly fast for how much the hours had appeared to drag out, after he had got bored of his ‘game’, since he failed to have Tommy join him in ‘playing’ it, Wilbur had dug out a deck of cards from somewhere and all but forced Tommy to play with him. 

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Philza had appeared sometimes, bringing things from the basement with him, and smiling at them like the proud dad he had never been, every time he got upstairs and Tommy and Wilbur hadn’t actually killed each other, which wasn’t that much of a concern since as far as Wilbur was concerned if he had found a way to immortality he’d  get Tommy to take it with him.

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All in all, despite the various bouts of terror, the day had gone way better than Tommy had expected it to. And Wilbur despite being a bit frustrated with his lack of participation in his ‘game’ had yet to yell at him, which was... kind of concerning, since he had to pass the entire night with him.

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And while he had passed the day with him too, night was different. Especially since it was meant to be one of their Cozy Nights, because that meant that Tommy was expected to fall asleep in Wilbur’s arms( _ whether it was from actual tiredness and the lull of relaxation or because he was so terrified he’d pass out _ ) so that Wilbur could cuddle up to him and sleep till midday sure that Tommy was safe in his arms where no-one(bar from himself) could hurt him.

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Honestly once, Tommy loved Cozy Nights, he and Wilbur hugged under a warm blanket with his brother telling him absurd stories, that Tommy was sure he had come up with on the spot, or listening to Tommy speak of the most random things ever. Like the time they ended up talking about how much they hated squids ( _ there wasn’t even a real reason, Tommy thought they looked to stupid to exist and Wilbur had started an entire tirade about how they looked like they could see your sins and were enjoying them _ ), sometimes Wilbur would make them hot chocolate ( _ which he always made with real chocolate instead of making them simply normal hot cocoa _ ), and they’d stay up a bit later than usual, talking even more between the sips of the hot beverage.

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Tommy had loved every and each one of those nights. 

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But then the Election had happened, then Pogtopia was created, and as Wilbur’s mental health declined so did Tommy’s enjoyments for those nights they passed exclusively together. They became more focused on making Wilbur feel good about himself, and in general, than an experience for both of them to enjoy.

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“You have to take off your armor, you know that, Tommy.” Wilbur said as he closed the door of ‘his’ room –that was filled with notes and written things all in Wilbur’s curly handwriting( _ it was…  _ comforting _ to see that that was still the same _ )–, after Philza had waved them goodnight and told them to call him if they needed…  _ anything _ . ( _ They wouldn’t. At least on that he and Wilbur still agreed _ ).

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And Tommy had to held back a shudder, Dream’s voice hissing to him to take off his armor and throw it into a hole so he could destroy it, repeating in his head. Still he knew Wilbur didn’t mean that, and really he couldn’t go to sleep with his armor on, it would make his sleep uncomfortable and hurt.

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Reticently Tommy took off the armor, doing it slowly to remember himself that he wasn’t doing this for Dream, that it was just normally taking it off before going to bed. No-one would touch his armor here.  
  
_ No-one would destroy it. _

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When Tommy finally took the last piece of armor off, Wilbur was already lying on his side on the bed, after having took off his trench-coat( _ the back slightly stained with blood but neither Phil nor Wilbur himself seemed to care, Tommy did _ … he did) and boots.

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Tommy joined him, and Wilbur immediately hugged him, not too tight though, even if it was still a bit too tight to be completely comfortable. 

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To Tommy’s immense surprise, he was still more than a bit tense in staying so close to Wilbur, that wasn’t death-cold anymore, but warm and _alive_ , and he could feel his heartbeat against his back, slow and calm, and most important of all, _there_. To his surprise Wilbur started talking of the stars and the moon and how much he had missed their lights when they were in Pogtopia, he talked of all and nothing, his voice soft and warm and despite himself, even with his head screaming at him that this was going to well, that it was impossible that Wilbur was letting him off the hook after he had got him irritated a few hours before, Tommy let himself believe that maybe, just maybe things would go well this time ( _he always did this, and always got hurt… he couldn’t_ trust _Wilbur, he knew it… but at the same time if he couldn’t trust his own brother who could he trust?_ ), and lulled by his own hope and Wilbur’s warm voice Tommy started drifting asleep in his brother’s arms as he did when he was younger, when Cozy Nights made him feel safe and even more loved.

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Tommy was almost completely asleep when he heard Wilbur whisper: “Dream.” into his ear, and their hug was too warm and Wilbur’s hold too gentle for Tommy to get alarmed but the sudden and random mention of the green bastard.

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“W’at?” he asked with all the coherence he could muster half-asleep as he was.

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Wilbur huffed a silent chuckle. “What would you do with him?”

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And honestly Tommy was too asleep to reason logically, too asleep to not let the part of him that had wanted to play Wilbur’s ‘game’ talk. So, slightly mashing together his syllables, Tommy started talking, telling Wilbur all the little, terrible thoughts that had come up into his mind since he realized how truly  _ evil _ Dream had been with him during exile.

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And maybe in his mindless telling, he let somethings about his exile out too, because Wilbur tensed for a fraction of a moment, then hugged him even tighter, making Tommy feel all warm and loved ( _ all thoughts of fear fleeting away from his mostly sleeping brain _ ),  and silently chuckled in his ear.

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“We’ll do all of that, darling.” Wilbur whispered. “We’ll make him beg and cry, it’s going to be…  _ beautiful _ .”

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	9. Family Bonding Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil wants to test his theory about Wilbur’s relative sanity being conditional like Technoblade’s.(but of course he wont tell that to his sons)  
> And Tommy gets dragged in Phil’s idea of a good ‘Family Bonding Time’

> “ _He inspired uneasiness. That was it! Uneasiness. Not a definite mistrust—just uneasiness—nothing more. You have no idea how effective such a... a... faculty can be.”_
> 
> _Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness”_

Wilbur started waking up slowly, as light streamed in from the window and on his face, preventing him from continuing to sleep.

_He felt warm._

He never felt warm, the coldness of the underground trapped inside him, like he had left a piece of himself deep down in the ravine, or maybe more like he had taken a piece of the ravine with him.

Not now though.

_He felt warm, content._

Someone was with him, sleeping in his arms. Delight, almost more akin to bliss than only delight, bloomed in his chest, flooding his heart and the ever-aching wound-that-wasn’t-there, as memories of the day before presented themselves to him. And with the sure weight, the presence in his arms, the warmth that surrounded him, Wilbur was finally sure that it was true, that it really was true and not a too realistic, wistful dream.

He opened his eyes, slowly, unhurried, feeling almost sluggish with all that warmth surrounding him, a little smile, more on the softer side than his usual one, curved his lips.

Surely enough, the one in his arms was _Tommy_.

_His Tommy, his little brother._

_His, his, his._

_  
Back by his side, where he should be. Where he should always be._

His smile widened slightly, as he tightened his arms around his brother a bit more, promising to himself that he wouldn’t let anyone divide them ever again. This was how things should always be.

_He and Tommy._

_Only he and his little brother,_ that was all Wilbur ever needed.

He suppressed a little too pleased sound, that would have been more akin to a shrill ‘aw’, when Tommy still sound asleep nuzzled his face against his chest.

_He is so cute!_ Wilbur thought, feeling all warm and fuzzy, almost too much, but he couldn’t stop himself, he was simply so… _happy_. No it was more than happy, he couldn’t even start to describe what he was feeling, he just wanted it to never stop.

‘ _I’ll protect you, I’ll protect you._ ’ he started thinking, eyes fixed to his his brother’s sleeping form, as if to sincere himself that Tommy really was there, that he really had him back.

_That it wasn’t a dream._

Wilbur scowled, as that last thought, that last word repeated itself in his head, haziness fading. Together with the harmless warm feeling he had been basking in till now, cold slowly creeping back in his chest, angry, violent, fizzling like blaze powder.  
  
 _Dream, Dream, Dream._

Wilbur stifled a growl, feeling it trapped low in his throat, as the mashed together words Tommy had said the night before returned in the foreground of his thoughts.

‘ _I want to make him take off his armor, I wanna burn it in front of his eyes. Like he did to me_ ’

‘ _I want to trap him near lava, so close to feel the scalding hot of flowing rock, but not enough that he could try to make it stop. I want to leave him there, alone, alone alone, until he yearns for it, and then I’ll stop him from ending it all. I want him to feel what I felt._ ’

‘ _I want to get him somewhere far, far from here, alone and helpless and break him to pieces, until he cries and cowers at the sight of me and at the same time, needs me so much that he can’t hide away._ ’

And many others, comments and wants too detailed to not be taken from personal experience. That hadn’t been what Wilbur was expecting when he asked Tommy that, he hadn’t expect to discover that his little brother had been hurt that much by that green bastard.

_He hadn’t._

But now he knew what Dream had done, and he’d make sure that Dream would pay, he’d make sure that his little brother has the revenge he wants.

And he wants to be there, and _watch_. Sneer and insult the bastard till he felt like he meant even less than the dirt under his boots. He wanted to break Dream into many little splintered pieces that could never be woven back together, to break his mask and make him choke on his own poisonous tears.

He wanted, no, needed to see Tommy paint his own hands with the green bastard blood, he wanted to see his Tommy smile and laugh as they destroyed Dream.

And it would be beautiful. _Beautiful!_

Like the perfect climax for the perfect composition, even better than L’Manberg last discordant note.

Because it wouldn’t be an unfinished symphony, no, he and his brother would write up the last notes together.

_Beautiful, harmonious notes dripping of blood red_ and accompanied by the broken screams of an unsavable sinner meeting his right punishment.

He could see it right in front of his eyes, as if it was already happening, _their surrounding vague but dark, like blackstone and veined obsidian, and Dream on his knees in front of them, blood and green tears trickling from between his fingers, a_ _porcelain mask broken to pieces some of which were imbedded in his flesh._

_And Tommy was there, by Wilbur’s side, looking down at the green bastard, with a wide smile on his face and eyes burning with rage and hatred, his hands painted thick, deep red, Dream’s blood on his little brother’s hands_ …

Wilbur stifled a too high-pitched chuckle, not wanting to wake Tommy up. He was quite enjoying the feeling of having him so, so _close_.

_It hadn’t happen in such a long time…_

Even in Pogtopia, during their Cozy Nights, Tommy never relaxed this much, always keeping distant. It had hurt to see his Tommy being so… _distant_ , reticent, almost, to stay in his vicinity like they had been once when Tommy was younger.

But he wouldn’t fault Tommy for that, it had been the _others_ to convince him that he had to watch his back from him, it had been Tubbo, with his still growing ram horns – _what Phil had said, about Tubbo having become basically a second Schlatt repeating in his mind over and over and_ over (and now in his mind he saw Tubbo near Dream in that undefined cell, he’d snap the two-faced traitor horns out of his skull with his own hands, or maybe an ax.)–, to convince his dear Tommy that he had to be cautious of him. Maybe even Technoblade, the Blood God loved chaos and the more tension was there the more he flourished.

  
_They had turned his brother against him._

_  
But they weren’t here anymore. Tommy was with him. _

_With him, where he should be._

Wilbur was brought back to reality by Tommy who had made the most adorable offended noise, Wilbur had ever heard as he hid his face against his chest to escape the light and continue to sleep.

_So adorable._   
  
He’d leave him there if he could, for as much time as Tommy needed, after all Wilbur wasn’t in any hurry, in fact they could stay in his bed till afternoon, if that’s what would take Tommy to wake up at his own pace.

Wilbur adjusted a bit, a disappointed sigh leaving his mouth since he couldn’t keep hugging Tommy as tightly as he wanted but, this way Tommy could hide from the sun as much as he wanted.  
The man voluntarily ignored how the continuous shuffling of his sweater against the wound-that-wasn’t-there was starting to make it hurt instead of just ache, but he would put up with that. For Tommy, he’d put up with everything.

_Besides betrayal of course._

_But Tommy wouldn’t betray him, he wouldn’t._

_And if he tried… well, Wilbur would have to remind him that anyone he was trusting over his brother was just using him… by any means possible._

.

.

.

Somehow in between imagining Dream and Tubbo’s fate by their hands, and watching Tommy sleep, Wilbur had drifted back to sleep, his mind filled with images of justified violence and blood, and Tommy’s clear laugh ringing in his ears mixing with Dream and Tubbo’s anguished screams.

“Wil..?”

Wilbur opened his eyes, as Tommy’s voice, all muffled against his sweater and low, cut through his bloodied dreams. He gave a little smile to his brother, even though Tommy wasn’t looking up to see it. “Toms?”

“Did I… wake you up?”

Wilbur chuckled, he felt Tommy tense up in his arms, ( _oh, when he found the ram-horned traitor that poisoned his Tommy’s head…_ ). “Kind of, but don’t worry. It’s fine.”

Tommy remained all tense and nervous for a moment more, making Wilbur drop his smile, but then he relaxed again, and Wilbur let the embers of anger that had been ignited in his chest to die down.

“… Uh, Good morning, Wilbur” Tommy said after a moment, raising his head and meeting his gaze.

“Good morning, Tommy” he answered back, a smile on his lips and a fond chuckle stuck in his throat at _how adorably cute his little brother was._  
 _How could someone be so lethal, able to cut down lives and a tad bit of a destructive arsonist, and then also be so sweet? It should be impossible_.

Unnoticed by the man, Tommy had tensed again in hearing that chuckle especially when paired with the wide smile on his face.

“Did you sleep well, darling?”  
  
Tommy nodded, and didn’t make a move to leave the bed, Wilbur liked to think that it was because his little brother needed this closeness just as much as he himself did, that Tommy too had missed this. But the real reason, even though Wilbur didn’t even want to consider it, was that Tommy was too scared to do the first move to conclude their Cozy Night, too scared on how Wilbur would have reacted if he did try that.

A knock at the door made the attention of both, the former General and former Capitan, snap to the door, both of them ready to rush out of bed and defend themselves. Wilbur had hidden a few weapons in his room, taken from the basement when the Angel was busying himself upstairs, and he wouldn’t hesitate to arm his Tommy.

“Are you awake?” Phil’s voice filtered through the door, not muffled by the wooden door, which was to be expected, his voice never really followed the same rules human voices did.

For a moment Wilbur, thought to not answer, but he knew that their father already knew they were awake, that his question was just out of courtesy, so he sighed, pointedly ignoring how Tommy tried to weasel out of his hold when he did so, and then answered.

He could feel the Angel’s beaming smile even through the door. “I’ve prepared a surprise for you two. I’ll show you after breakfast.”

The two brothers exchanged glances, neither of them liked surprises, not after Eret, not after the entire fiasco of the Elections, not after… well, not after everything that had happened to them really.

Wilbur didn’t think that their father would try to kill them, after all that’d be way to abrupt with how unusually caring he had been. Other thoughts then presented themselves in his mind, one darker than the other, the only thing that reassured him that _those things_ couldn’t be considered possibilities was that their father was an angel… so there were things that his nature literally stopped him from doing.

_Either way, what ever the surprise could be, both got up from the bed tense and ready for basically… every possible outcome_.

Uh, maybe his paranoia had somehow rubbed off on his little brother? Or maybe after what happened in that godsdamned exile had made him more cautious.  
 _It was a good thing._

That Tommy wasn’t as reckless as before.

Though Wilbur would have preferred Tommy to learn from him than from actual experience.

After Tommy had suited up, the shiny netherite gleaming in the sun coming from the window, and Wilbur had put on his trench-coat, he didn’t do armor after all, and besides even if he did he didn’t have any with him, they left the room.

.

.

Breakfast was… tense, for a lack of a better definition, though Phil seemed oblivious of the fact voluntarily ignoring his sons tension, just to keep his little illusion working.  
  
Wilbur stifled another bitter chuckle, _and he was the delusional one, uh?_ , at least he wasn’t pretending that their little family was a picture perfect family of those that one found in fables, and stories. He knew they weren’t, not with Phil at least, he and Tommy were the closest thing to an actual perfect family, _Phil though? He wasn’t part of it._

_At all._

Not after having abandoned them, not after having abandoned Tommy to everyone’s mercy when he was at his weakest, not when he had deemed Tommy a traitor of his own blood only because he had ‘betrayed’ Technoblade, who wasn’t even part of their family, not at all despite Phil clearly preferring him over his own actual sons.

But he’d play into Phil’s little delusion, as long as it still benefited him. Then he and Tommy would be out, ready to exact their own revenge on all that had wronged them.

When breakfast was over, after having washed the dishes, surprisingly with Phil helping them, black wings embracing them in a warm, feathery hug, that was way too pleasant for Wilbur to actually enjoy it.

It made him feel on edge, his mind split between wanting to melt in the soft warmth and screaming at him to not let his guard down.

He listened to the latter.

“So… What is this ‘surprise’?” Wilbur asked, Phil smiled at him.

“Go take the swords you have stashed in your room, Wil. You’ll need them for my surprise.”

_And wasn’t that fucking ominous?_

_Maybe he had to reconsider on the ‘he won’t kill us’ part, because it really felt like the Angel was threatening them, and also… how did he know of the swords?_

Wilbur stifled an irritated sigh, muttering under his breath about how much he hated the fact that Phil had enhanced senses, and that that just wasn’t fair. _Why couldn’t he get something too from his not-exactly-human body?_   
  
No, the only thing he got from that was that he was difficult to kill even when he wanted to die. Which was somewhat of a disappointment, the fact that he was so difficult to kill, he’d have embraced the sweet peaceful relief of death… maybe even brought Tommy with him.

After all there was a reason he had named him president when they had got L’Manberg back, he had planned for his Tommy to die in the explosion, they would have gone out together in a blaze of destruction.

_Maybe Phil would have been proud of him if he had managed to destroy so much in so little time._

He took the iron swords from where he had hidden them, and brought them back downstairs.

Phil let him give one to Tommy.

_Yeah, something was definitely wrong there._

.

.

.

Their father’s surprise was… away from the cottage, quite away in fact, hidden in a cave of which entrance was basically impossible to spot if one couldn’t fly.

As they entered the cave, Wilbur suppressed a shiver when natural light stopped filtering down, his mind filling with the images of a ravine filled to the brim with buttons, of eyes staring at him, judging him, leering at him, watching, watching, forever watching.  
Always cold, too cold, like the stone was stealing away his warmth, like the darkness of the underground wanted him dead.

Tommy took his free hand in his, holding it tightly, grounding him. Chasing away the specter of a past that to him was still too recent.

Distractedly, Wilbur wondered if Phil had used his Grace to make sure that they wouldn’t try to run away, because he for the life of him couldn’t get why neither he or Tommy had tried to run for it.

They were armed, they knew how to hide and survive. _Why weren’t they running?_

Phil stopped them from walking forward even more by extending an arm in front of them. His glowing eyes visible in the darkness, just like his halo… that… _didn’t really look that much like a halo anymore, the crack on the top made it appear divided in two horns_ , it didn’t even glow the same, more muted and _netherish_.

Wilbur glanced at Tommy, his little brother, all tense and worried, was staring at Phil’s halo… _horns?_ Too.

Wilbur adjusted his grip on the sword, Tommy did the same. And Wilbur had to stifle a smile in seeing that after all this time, for Tommy at least, they still had the same synergy.

“Your surprise, Wil, Tommy.” Phil whispered, voice so low that Wilbur almost didn’t hear him.

Finally he looked over Phil, stopping from staring at his … horns. In front of them there was… a monster oasis.

An underground room filled with monsters of the night, a place that should have been a safe place for them during the day.

“A… monster oasis?” Tommy asked, in a low whisper.

Phil smiled, all sweet and calm, and… empty. That was the Angel of Death, not their father, the inhuman being he really was, hidden behind a semi-human appearance. “I noticed the tension between us, yesterday and today… and thought… well, what better way to let it out?”

Wilbur chuckled as low as the sound was, it still echoed in the tunnel and the chamber below, attracting the empty eyes of some zombies, and made some skeletons turn their heads too.

The mindless moaning and the clank-clank of bones got more intense.

“This is your idea of Family Bonding, Phil? Killing things together?” he asked, the smile curving his lips not masking the bitter amusement in his voice.

Tommy tried to back away, Wilbur grabbed him by the wrist, as Phil stared not understanding his reaction. Like he thought they’d be ecstatic for his surprise.

Wilbur chuckled again, nearing the ledge of the tunnel with the chamber, dragging Tommy to the edge with him. More and more monsters of the night had started moving towards them, attracted by the sound, and after that by the smell of living prey. “Of course. Why should I think differently? For you murder is always the solution, well… if this is for me, and Tommy…” a pause, his voice ranking up in speed, slowly getting more and more wrapped up in a sort of mania, the smile on his face so wide that it hurt, his eyes not even looking at the monsters, staring instead at their father.

“Wil… I just-”  
  
Wilbur stopped him, talking over him. Tommy was frenetically trying to free his wrist, the sharp netherite of his armor scraping at the palm of his hand, but Wilbur didn’t let go. “Well, if this is our gift…, don’t mind if we make the most of it.”  
  
“Wilbur!” Tommy yelled as his brother jumped down the ledge dragging him down with him, Tommy screamed, the sharp claw-like tips of his armor gauntlets ( _that was Dream’s design he made his gauntlets claw-like so that he could literally claw his way out of trouble if something disarmed him, why did Tommy made his own armor like his?_ ) scraping against the stone after he let go of the sword.

Phil didn’t even look worried, just calculating as he looked from up above, as his sons landed in the midst of flesh-eating monsters, before a smile appeared once again on his face as Wilbur, all madness and fury started doing what he did best (even better than music, Angels shouldn’t create after all), slashing and cutting and maiming, Tommy joining him after he found his sword.

They were surrounded, but Phil knew they’d make it out of it. And if they really were in danger he’d intervene. Until then he’d let them have their fun.

.

Wilbur whirled around all grace and anger, cutting a zombie from hip to shoulder, the rotten flesh and weakened bones parting like butter under the sharp iron.

He was furious, furious with Phil.

Furious with Dream, and Tubbo and Niki and everyone that had hurt, betrayed or turned their backs to his Tommy.

  
Wilbur ducked down an arrow flew above his head, killing another monster that had sneaked behind him, then he cracked the skeleton’s skull.

Tommy was not all that far, cutting and hacking and maiming with just as much anger, dark netherite splattered with dark red, and vivid, too vivid, crimson from the few ‘alive’ monsters.

An armored zombie managed to break Tommy’s parry, and as Wilbur prepared to rush there to protect his little brother, Tommy yelled and literally clawed off the zombie’s face with his netherite claws.

Wilbur laughed at the absurd view of something literally killing a zombie by clawing their face, and at that show of pure, absolute brutality from Tommy.

“Let it out, Toms!” He yelled voice filled with mirth, and shaky with laughter. “Use them as a test run for what you want to do to Dream!”  
  
Tommy looked at him for a fraction of a moment, shocked then offended, then furious and then… he just smirked back.

_Uh, maybe Phil’s idea of family bonding wasn’t all that wrong. After all he and Tommy understood each other better in the heat of battle._

.

.

.

Meanwhile far, far from there a lone ghost roamed endlessly in a forest.

He was searching for something, _something_ . _But for the death of him he couldn’t remember what._

Finally he got to a clearance, there was a house there and a person he knew, shaggy blond hair and curved ram-horns.

“Tubbo!” Ghostbur exclaimed happily, the boy jumped, the shovel in his hand falling soundlessly into the snow, then he turned around, bright green eyes and horizontal pupils looking at him, a flash of sadness, immediately buried flashed in them.

While the ghost felt a surge of anger at the sight of the ram-horns but it went away so fast he forgot it immediately.

“Ghostbur!” Tubbo exclaimed just has happily.

Ghostbur was searching for something, _maybe Tubbo could help him understand what?_

But before he could talk the boy asked him something. “So...uh, the resurrection didn’t work out?”

Ghostbur frowned, a flash of Alivebur breathing and scowling appearing in his mind as fast as a lightning, he smiled to Tubbo. “No, no it worked!”

Tubbo looked at him confused.

“Yes, you see, Alivebur is with Phil...in…” Ghostbur’s voice faded as a painful very recent memory appeared in his mind, and no amount of Blue could get rid of all that pain. He snapped his eyes open and turned his back on the shocked boy. “I… I have to go. I…”  
  
“Ghostbur… what is happening?” Tubbo asked, confused and worried, and a bit scared, the snow under Ghostbur was getting black, tainted by the black tears running down his eyes, as more and more memories filled the ghost’s head.

“I left Tommy with Alivebur.”


	10. Blood stained hands... that will never be clean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two brothers continue with their ‘bonding time’, meanwhile Dream finally does his move.  
> Safe to say the answer he gets is not what he expects.

> “ _Tell them that you weren't hungry, tell them you followed the pomegranates seeds because they tasted like blood, like love.”_
> 
> _Pauline Albanese, The Closed Doors”_

Wilbur wasn’t sure of how much time he and Tommy spent down there, in the monster oasis, surrounded by flesh-eating beasts and bathed in darkness.  
He and his little brother, that once had _really let go_ , moved together like cogs of a well-oiled machine, knowing exactly when to strike and when to guard, twirl and turn, in between slashes of their swords against their enemies… or maybe he could just consider them, prey. 

Those monsters were nothing in comparison to them,  it was like training with moving dummies,  with the only difference being that the former, bleed and shrieked when it was hit, and that there was the humid, bloodied sound of the tearing of flesh or the dry snap of a broken bone, that followed Wilbur and Tommy’s strikes.

Wilbur stifled an elated chuckle as he  slashed an unarmored zombie across the chest, volutarily going for a non-lethal hit, just so he could hear the thing shriek out in pain before goring it open with his sword, the zombie fell onto the stone with a squelch, painting the dull gray bright red, as it kept trying to get to him, crawling.  
  
“Good Gods, Wilbur,  _stop that_!” Tommy yelled, but despite that and the almost disgusted tone of his voice, there was a too wide smile on his face ( _Wilbur knew it was just Tommy’s reaction to excessive adrenaline, but he ignored that_ ) as if he was just as amused by the pitiful show of perseverance of the undead being as Wilbur was.

“Can’t do, Toms” he answered back, smashing the zombie’s skull under his boot, when he grew bored by its one-minded focus of crawling to him.  
  
The air smelt of iron and copper, and of decay and dust, a hint of gunpowder from some exploded creepers, that had sprayed the walls in blood and gore. Still the monsters kept coming forward, not realizing that Wilbur and Tommy were far from defenseless, little villagers.

Tommy flat-parried the hit from a rusty ax, pushing his attacker back and running it through with his sword, then as he went to retract the sword he grabbed the blade from the forte and turning it, thrust the pommel, shaped like a cone(like it was for all of the  swords Technoblade forged), through a skeleton’s empty orbit.

The creature crashed into a useless pile of bones, Tommy’s smile grew slightly.  
  
The two brothers continued for another while, before a blinding light shined from who-knew-where, flooding the  chamber with bright, slightly netherish in tint, light, that made the monsters hiss and shamble back into the darkness of the tunnels that opened in the sides of the chamber.

Wilbur and Tommy hissed too at the blinding light that had so suddenly appeared, going to shield their eyes with their free blood-covered hands.

With a flap of wings, Phil was there in the now mostly empty monster oasis, the only beasts remaining: some creepers and Endermen not deterred by light.

The Angel of Death looked around with his glowing eyes, pride clear in them, as he watched the massacre his sons had caused, and the way they proudly stood in the center of all.  
  
Wilbur felt a surge of warm pride fill his chest, even if he didn’t want it – _because he didn’t need Phil, he didn’t need him and his damned prideful look at all!_ –, that traitorous feeling still filled him, making him feel almost…  _warm_ , and even happier than causing all that bloodshed had done. 

Because Phil looked proud, not  _disappointed_ . Proud as he took in the sight that Wilbur, and Tommy, must be, all covered in monster’s blood, hands dripping red, wide smiles that weren’t even because they necessarily enjoyed it(though Wilbur did) but because that was how they reacted to the rush of a fight.

The warmth in his chest died down as Wilbur remembered that this wasn’t… _special_ , Phil always looked proud when he, and his brother, killed things. The more brutal, the more inhuman and uncaring they were when doing it, the more the Angel would have looked at them with pride, calling them ‘his little soldiers’ and telling them how wonderfully lethal they had been.  
Always congratulating their forms, and stands, and never even caring to ask if they felt fine or if the smell of blood had become too much.

Wilbur didn’t care about the smell of blood, not anymore, in fact he liked it. He liked the tang that it left on his tongue as he breathed it in, as if he had swallowed a mouthful of molten iron, but… better. He even liked the sensation of blood on his skin, dense like paint, dripping,  dripping,  _dripping_ from his fingers, getting stuck under his fingernails. He could never get rid of it completely.

Never.

Never.

_Never_ .

He could always see specks of it on his skin, no matter how much he tried to wash it away, there was always blood. Blood on his hands, on his clothes, there was blood on his face, in his mouth.  
And he just couldn’t get rid of it.

_ He couldn’t. He couldn’t. _

He hated the red that painted his being after a battle, he hated it. He hated it. Hated it.  _Hated it_ . He…

_ He loved red. _

It was just like the blue  expanse of the sky or of the ocean, but…  _wrong_ .

He loved red because it was just like blue, but wrong.

_ Just as vital, but if too much of it was spilled deadly. _

“..bur? _Wilbur_!”  
  
Wilbur snapped back to reality, Tommy was gripping his free hand so tightly that he was sure that the sharp tips of his gauntlet were digging in his palm, he… _couldn’t exactly feel it._ But that was fine. Even if Tommy hurt him, it wouldn’t be that bad, because he knew he didn’t mean it. 

Tommy loved and needed him, just as much as Wilbur did.

_ So he was forgiven. _

“Yeah, Tommy?” 

“It’s all… _okay_? You kinda spaced out… like you were completely in another place.”  
  
Wilbur shrugged, making the gesture to try and sheath his sword just to remember that… _he didn’t have a sheath were to place back the sword._ Tommy appeared even more worried, nether, even Phil looked worried.

A chuckle, one of the violent ones, the one he didn’t know from what where caused, bubbled up in his chest, he tried to stifle it but failed. 

And as it often did one chuckle followed another, and suddenly he was laughing  _because come on, since when Phil cared enough to be worried? Tommy he could understand but Phil?_ , his voice echoing in the vaulted chamber.

The sword fell from his hand, his grip weakened too much to keep the slippery blood glazed leather of the hilt from slipping. The echoing clatter was soon after followed by another, as Tommy hissed something to Phil, that now was so worried that Wilbur almost would have thought of him as concerned if it wasn’t that that was too much of  a human emotion for him to have. 

_ He was probably just horrified by seeing how  _ broken _ he was.  _

_ How terribly, terribly, terribly  _ cracked _ his mind was.  
  
He was probably so fucking  _ disappointed _ in him.  
  
At least the laughter was stopping him from yelling at his father to pick up the sword, all covered in blood, and kill him.  
  
Better be dead than a disappointment. _

_ Better be gone than having to accept the fact that he was such a fucking failure.  
  
He couldn’t even protect Tommy. _

_ His little brother had been hurt by the green fucker. _

_ He couldn’t even protect  _ his _ Tommy. _

_Like he couldn’t protect his L’Manberg.  
  
He couldn’t do a single fucking thing right._   
  
_And everything was covered in blood, iron in his mouth, and red, red,_ red-

Something slippery and viscous and cold and solid cupped his face,  a  netherite covered  hand gently placed on  one side of his head, the other still gripping his hand but now more softly .

“Wilbur.” Tommy called, soft and calm and, oh, so sweet. The scream of ‘ _red, red, red_ ’ in his head receding, going quieter and quieter, as Tommy called his name.  
He said nothing else, just ‘Wilbur’ over and over, and over again, soft and sweet, affectionate.  
  
A tension Wilbur hadn’t even realized was there left his shoulders, the laughter, that had grown dry and almost hacking, like cough (how hadn’t he realized that?), fading. He closed his eyes and leaned against the netherite clad hand.  


“That’s it, Wilby. That’s it.” Tommy’s voice still soft, praised him, warmth blossomed in his chest once again, accompanied by the happiness of hearing Tommy calling him ‘Wilby’.  
  
He heard a flutter of feathers, heavy steps getting near them, but Tommy was still cupping his face, so Wilbur didn’t open his eyes.  
  
“Stay the fuck away, Phil. This is all your fault.” Tommy growled, way deeper than he could the last time Wilbur had heard that tone. Wilbur felt a slight smile tug at the corner of his lips at hearing Tommy so protective.

_ So, it was true. _

_ His little brother still loved him. _

_ Oh, Tommy.  _

_ He understood. Of course he did. _

_ Not even the lies of the traitors could make Tommy hate him. _

Wilbur smiled.

Tommy let out a relieved sigh. “C’mon, big man. Open your eyes, now it’s all better isn’t it?”  
  
Wilbur did as told, Tommy gave him a little smile.

“Seriously, what’s up with you and scaring me with _that laugh_ , uh?” his brother asked, but his tone was light, almost joking. 

“I like to keep you on your toes, you know that.” He said instead of answering a question that clearly Tommy didn’t expect to be answered.  
  
“Yeah, well… try with something else, because next time I’ll punch you in the face, if you start laughing like _that_.”  
  
Phil said something, probably reprimanded Tommy for what he had just said, Wilbur ignored the Angel completely, focusing only on Tommy. 

He chuckled softly at the words he had just said. Tommy always said that, even in Pogtopia, never actually acted on it though, it was more his way to show that he knew Wilbur was feeling better than anything else.  
  
_It was familiar._

Like a piece of his time, in this strange future he found himself in.

Tommy made to move away his hand, but Wilbur kept it there, grabbing his wrist so he couldn’t retract it. Tommy flinched, the sharp tips of his gauntlet almost scratching him, the blood that had covered his brother’s hand felt almost sticky now, sign that it was probably starting to clot already.  
  
Wilbur didn’t care. He didn’t care for a lot of things honestly, he had stopped years ago caring for useless things: Like other people, that would end up betraying him anyways; like his music, no-one liked it either way and he stopped wanting to show his heart too long ago;  like his own life,  _ after all who cared if he lived or not? He certainly  _ didn’t; and a bunch of other things.  
  
He cared only for two things: L’Manberg and Tommy. And L’Manberg was gone, blown up sky high by his own father, apparently. So Wilbur had only Tommy,  _and by the Gods, he wouldn’t lose him._

_ Never. _

_ Tommy was his, and he wasn’t gonna let anyone take him away from it. _

_ Nether, if someone tried he’d cut their hands and heads off.  
  
Tommy was his. His, his, his. _

“ _Mine_.” he heard himself mutter, as he kept staring into Tommy’s wide open eyes.

“W-Wil?”  
  
Wilbur opened his mouth to tell Tommy what he had just thought. But Phil preceded him.

“The orb is going to go out fast.” he said. “So, less you are ready for a second round we should go.” There was something strange in the way Phil was looking at them, like he was trying to piece a puzzle back up, but since he didn’t know the image it should represent, he was having a difficult time in putting it back together.  
  
Wilbur let Tommy’s wrist go with a sight.  
  
They left the swords in the monster oasis.

.

* * *

.

  
  


Saying that Tommy felt antsy would have been an understatement. He was feeling worse than that.  
  
Those last moments in the monster oasis repeating in his head, over and over again.  
What the nether did Wilbur mean when he said ‘mine’?  
  
Surely he wasn’t talking about him… right?  
  
Tommy suppressed a shiver, not all that well judging by the look Philza gave him, before he went searching for something on the other side of the living space of the cabin. Wilbur was… away for the moment, to go wash away the blood, Tommy had gone just before him.

He was glad that he didn’t have to deal with his crazed brother right now, the fact that he had to, in the oasis, had been enough to last him at least a few other lifetimes.

He hadn’t done that since… Pogtopia. He hadn’t calmed Wilbur down from one of his laughing fits in years and yet, it left him feeling all the same way, even more now that he wasn’t desensitized to it anymore. He felt creeped out, almost disgusted with himself for having treated Wilbur, oh so, gently when Wilbur would never do the same for him.

No, that was a lie. 

Wilbur would, had, once. Before all of this, before  their arrival in  Dream’ s kingdom.

Not that Tommy had ever had a laughing fit, as those Wilbur had. 

The one in which he laughed and laughed till he cried, and then continued till the laugh turned into a dry, scratchy cough and he still wouldn’t stop till someone snapped him out of it.

_ It terrified him. _

Philza reappeared from wherever he had gone, bringing a wool blanket with him. “Here.” He said, a soft smile on his face. The Angel must have misunderstood his shiver for one of cold than what he actually was.  
  
Not wanting to explain himself to someone that was just as, if not more, delusional as Wilbur, Tommy just accepted the blanket and wrapped it all around himself. 

And even if he wasn’t feeling cold, the blanked did help somewhat in making him feel better, even though it didn’t substitute the feeling of being fully encased in his enchanted armor, since it had to be cleaned from the blood and so Tommy couldn’t wear it for now.

Wilbur walked in, without the trench-coat on, and that yellow sweater(probably one of Ghostbur’s), he did look way less menacing. Though it was enough to look into his eyes, into the tar pit-like well of madness that they were, to shatter the illusion to fine powder.

_Of course_ , Wilbur sat near him on the couch, even though there was literally another armchair to sit on. 

For a long, long moment there was, what almost was, a calm silence in the room, slightly interrupted just by Philza working on Tommy’s netherite armor – _he had insisted, and Tommy didn’t want to see if Philza’s gentleness was conditional as Wilbur’s was(not that Wilbur’s was all that conditional, it was certainly better than Dream’s)_ –, Wilbur slowly creeping closer, like he usually did in Pogtopia. 

_Though at least in the ravine he had the excuse of it being cold down there, but here?  
  
That ‘mine’ muttered in the monster oasis, repeating in his head. But surely… it was fine?  
  
At least Wilbur wasn’t Dream. _   
_If there was someone who had to consider him like_ that _he preferred it to be his brother, than that green bastard._

Then a chirp-like trill broke the silence.  
Tommy took his communication crystal out of his pocket, the crystal was glowing a bright orange-red, so a vocal message sent by an enemy…  _wonderful_ .

Wilbur, and Philza,’s attention immediately snapped to him. And Tommy cursed mentally at his quickness in taking the crystal out, because now he had to accept the connection, while his ‘family’ was there.  
  
With a sigh, hoping that it was someone like…  _maybe_ ,  _Jack Manifold? Well, anyone who wasn’t really all that dangerous of an enemy really_ , he touched the crystal muttering the enchantment to listen to whatever communication had been sent to him.

And immediately froze, as  _Dream’s voice_ filled the room. 

He almost let the crystal fall out of his hand.

“You want your disks back, Tommy?” Dream was saying, and from the not delayed pulsing of the light of the crystal this wasn’t ‘recorded’, Dream would have heard if he said something. _Dream was there, on the other side he was… he…_

Dream sighed at his lack of response. “Well, Tommy, if you want them… Well, you’ll have to win them back” Tommy could almost hear the smile on the bastard’s face, that wouldn’t have been all that different from the one on his damned mask. “I’ll wait for you, in a place of my choice of which I’ll tell you the location of in a week time.” a pause, the crystal’s light flickered “Oh, and Tommy, I want you to come alone.”  
  
Dread filled Tommy at those words, _he couldn’t face Dream alone, he couldn’t, he wasn’t ready. He wouldn’t be ready in a week, there wasn’t enough time_.

Wilbur snatched the crystal from his hand, the slacking grip he had on it letting his brother take the crystal easily. The dying glow of the crystal returned in full force, a bright red were it had been simply orange-red before.  
  
That was the color of pure hatred, the color reserved not for enemies, but for  _Enemies_ . The ones you didn’t leave alive, the one you didn’t have mercy for.

“Dream, my friend!” Wilbur exclaimed, tone way too high and sweet.  
  
A surprised sound came from Dream’s part of the connection. “Wilbur?”  
  
“The one and only, _Dreamy boy._ ” Wilbur answered, the smile growing on his face getting more bloodthirsty by the second. “now- _uh-uh! Don’t interrupt me_.”Wilbur snapped when Dream tried to cut in. “ _My_ Tommy wont meet you. And sure as fucking nether he wont meet you alone.”  
  
“Well, you see Wilbur,” Dream started voice as collected as ever now that he had recollected himself, Tommy wanted to vomit as that tone reminded him of the exile. Dream continued: “If Tommy wants his disks back he has to.”  


Wilbur chuckled, his fingers curling even more around the crystal as if it was Dream’s neck and he was trying to choke him. “Do you really think, I’ll let him go to you? What do you think I am, one of your stupid stringed up puppets, Dream?”  
  
“Of course not. _We are on the same level,_ Wilbur.” Dream said, but his tone seemed almost condescending, like he was saying those words just to appease Wilbur and not because he really thought them.

Wilbur gripped the crystal tighter. “ _Wonderful_. Then you’ll understand that if Tommy meets you, I’m gonna be with him, right?”  
  
“What? No, he has to be alone or-”  
  
“I go with him, or you wont see one single hair from his golden, little, pretty head.”  
  
_Silence_ .  
  
Dream didn’t answer for a long, long moment. And Tommy could see him with his mind eye, fuming in rage, hands itching to take some dynamite and blow up something Wilbur cared about. Only that he couldn’t, because the only thing Wilbur cared about ( _no, he cared about him too, right? Not on L’Manberg level of care but… a bit, right?_ ) was already gone.

Dream sighed. “Fine, _Soot_. You can come with Tommy, but bring someone else and I’ll destroy the disks.”  
  
Tommy tensed and made to say something but Wilbur was faster than him, his bloodthirsty smile growing satisfied.  
  
“ _Deal_ .”

  
  


* * *

Far away, two people, one in an in-between state of death and life and a boy, continued their journey. They were not-even half-way through, it would take them days to arrive to Techno’s old cabin.

Ghostbur marched with even more conviction, leaving behind him a trail of blackened tears, dense like clotted blood.

Tubbo following behind him, scared from the new aspect the ghost had taken and for his friend.

_ Hang in there, Tommy, we are coming to save you. _

_ Just, please, hang in there. _


End file.
